Leica CL My struggle with factory-set functions allied to the FN and right setting-wheel buttons

[jaapv]

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We're all different...

 

I appreciate that some people have little or no difficulty in using the camera and understanding the manual.

 

Sadly, I am not among them.

 

RA: You're not "talking into the wind" ... Your advice "to exercise every function" as you read is sound, and I shall take it.

 

For the present, I shall not attempt to immerse myself in User Profiles. Rather, I have taken jaap's advice:

 

"Go to menu --> main menu --> customize control;  here you can edit favourites, FN button, Right wheel button. Plus switch left and right button. For each you can make eight choices from a long list and differentiate as much as you want."

 

(the related page in the manual is 29 ... How clear / error-free do you find this important page?)

 

Rather than the mechanical rat-a-tat, blow-by-blow, style of Leica manuals, I prefer the chattier style of writers such as Alexander White of "White Knight Press" who have the ability to combine detail and advice, to weave a mechanical narrative if you will...

 

So much easier to understand. Such a pleasure to read... And his "manuals" contain indexes.*

 

Sadly, Alexander has decided not to write about the CL and opted for the new Leica C-Lux.

 

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* I'm still working on my index for the CL ... It's in Excel format ... PM me if you would like a copy ... Include your email address.

That sounds like a good start. BUT: after you have set the camera to your initial liking, go to --> user profiles --> save profile and just hit "save as #1"  if you do so, you can mess around at your leisure and always return to your preferences by activating "profile #1" User profiles are here to simplify matters, not to complicate them.

 

And remember: the best advice is: DON'T TOUCH THE BLODDY BUTTONS WHEN SHOOTING ! a bit of a hyperbole, I admit,, but still, it is camera, not a church organ.

[ramarren]

I've looked at pages 76 and 77 of the manual... I am not sure if pages 78 and 79 also relate to User Profiles.

 

I simply don't understand what's going on... User Profiles and memory-cards ?????

It would help if somebody would expand on the first bullet on page 76... "Set the desired functions in the menu" ... What exactly does this mean? What menu?

I wonder if somebody would be so good as to walk me / us through the construction of a user profile.

 

Is there any point in (me) starting a thread on "User Profiles for the beginner"?

 

I also wonder what proportion of CL users have developed user profiles, and how common it is for cameras to offer user profiles.

 

Pages 76-77 describe how to manage user profiles. Pages 78-79 describe how to reset the camera both globally and in more specific ways. 

 

Most of page 76-77 is a bit of verbose overkill describing how to operate the user profile management functions. 

 

The concept is very simple: 

• Presume you have configured the camera to work the way you want it to. That's what's meant by the first bullet: "Set the desired functions in the menu." By "menu" they mean all the settings you've made on all the menu pages and/or with buttons and dials (which are simply alternative ways to set parameters listed in the menu). 

   

  When you use the SAVE AS PROFILE function in USER PROFILES > MANAGE PROFILES, you are presented with a list of six possible memory slots that you can store whatever your camera setup configuration is into. Select which one you want to use, press the right arrow, use the left arrow to select YES, and press the center button on the four-way pad. The complete configuration of the camera is stored into that location. 

   

• Having the profile saved is only partially useful... If you used the first slot and only the first slot, you know you can always find that set of settings by choosing to use the first slot. But if you have more than one configuration that you want to save, it's really necessary to name them so you know which is which easily. This is what you use the RENAME PROFILE function to do: set names for your profiles. For instance, I've defined three ... two of mine are my standard setup of the entire camera which differ only by which lens profile I use for my R28 and R50 lenses. So these two profiles I've named "28Std" and "50Std". I have a third profile which contains the configuration I use for copying negatives, which means it sets the lens profile for my R60Macro lens, focus assist on, a Kelvin fixed color temperature, and a few other details. This is named "COPYNEG". The other profile slots are unused at present and have not been named. This is what the little soft touchscreen keyboard is meant to do: let you type a profile name into the camera. It's pretty simple.

   

• Now that you have user profiles defined and named, it is very very useful to be able to store the user profiles somewhere other than just in the camera's internal memory ... just in case you need to reset the camera for a firmware update or some bug that popped up. You use the EXPORT PROFILES function to do that. Calling that function, selecting YES, and pressing the center button on the four-way pad saves the user profiles you've created and named to a file on your memory card. It saves all of the slots, whether there's anything stored in them or not. 

   

• So now, presuming that you have set up your user profiles, named them, and exported the list onto a memory card, lets say something catastrophic happens (like someone managed to squirt some nasty acid into the body at the moment you happened to have the lens off and destroyed the sensor). Or perhaps you like your CL so much that you decide that it would nice to have a second one and you would like it to be configured in exactly the same way as your first one. That's what the IMPORT PROFILES function is for: insert a memory card that has had user profiles written to it into the new body, elect the IMPORT PROFILES function, and viola!: all your user profiles and camera configurations are now available on the new body just like on your first body. 

Using a user profile:

It's as simple as going to the User Profiles menu and picking the one you want by name, once you have set them up. I use the profiles 28Std and 50Std as shortcuts to get to my standard configuration and switch the lens profile between my two most used lenses (... since I don't own any native lenses, and R lenses require their profiles be manually selected except if you use the R Adapter L with R-system ROM lenses). If I use another R or M lens, and have been using either of 28 or 50 standard profiles, I use the lens profiles command to pick the lens I've switched to. In the course of shooting, I've often changed a setting here and there. When I'm done with whatever I was doing, I usually re-fit the 28 or 50 lens, then just pick the user profile to get back to my known, standard setup in order that the camera is ready for the next time I pick it up without my having to think about it again.

 

When I find myself making the same configuration change all the time to one of the standard camera configurations I use, I re-save the profile with the new settings into the appropriate slot. Like, for instance, with the 28mm lens I tend to use focus assist more than with the 50mm lens ... so I've now set up that option to be the default on the 28mm lens in the user profile, and re-exported the user profiles so that it will be reloaded if the need arises that I need to reload the profiles. 

 

Other people use the profiles for other purposes. Once you understand the concepts of user profiles and start using them, it's easy to see ways that they might prove useful ... but there is absolutely no reason to "have to" use user profiles at all. It is convenient if you have at least one created that reflects the camera customized for your use so that you have a configuration conveniently ready to import and use when a firmware update is released, saving you from having to go through all the menu options and reconfigure the camera from the defaults. 

 

I think most users of the CL, SL, T/TL Leicas occasionally share their personal settings and user profile ideas. I've certainly seen a few threads like that in the SL forum, and contributed my settings there. That said, the CL is a somewhat simpler camera with fewer customizations and controls to configure, so I don't know how many people will poke into a thread, or for how many posts they're persist with it. So, if you want to use user profiles more extensively than just making one to save your personal defaults, it's up to you to decide what to do with the idea of a thread around the topic. I've already described how I use them, at present, and what my rationale is. If you're using native lenses, well, using the profiles as a shortcut to choose lens profile configuration isn't important since the camera sets that automatically ... other uses likely have more meaningful purposes. 

 

- G aka "ramarren"

Edited August 7, 2018 by ramarren

[Learner]

Very useful G... Much obliged to you for going to all that trouble. Your notes would make a fine appendix to the manual!

[Learner]

OK Jaap...

 

I chose the favorites I wanted and saved them as Profile 1, but how do I call Profile 1 into action?

 

Then, how do I get Profile 1 out of action so that I can create another set of favorites and create Profile 2?

 

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I'm not even sure that I'm asking the roght questions.

 

Thank you.

 

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Update:

 

I have just noticed that the User 1 is active... How do I find out the settings in User 1?

 

Also, can one revise the settings within a saved profile?

 

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Late-breaking thought...

 

Could it be that the settings within each individual profile are shown as the current favorites?

Edited August 9, 2018 by Learner

[jaapv]

Go to the top menu and go to user profiles, the same place that you went to to save your profile. You have a menu choice for each menu, activate it and you are there.

You can also manage, save other profiles and rename them in this submenu.

 

Godfrey explains it perfectly in post #22

[lct]

[...] Godfrey explains it perfectly in post #22

 

+1. An index to this post could be useful though. Just kidding. You're patient as angels folks.

[thighslapper]

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Late-breaking thought...

 

Could it be that the settings within each individual profile are shown as the current favorites?

 

Almost everything that is settable on the camera can be saved in a profile, and that includes what is in the Fn list, Favourites and on the R. Wheel Button.

 

That is why you need to do all this slowly and logically ..... start with a default 'everything auto' profile that works for general use ...... then derive variants of this for other purposes and save them as User X, Y, Z etc .

 

You will make mistakes and discover unintended consequences ..... but you can just modify the parameters in question, try them out, and if all ok save that with the name unaltered. 

 

Once you have done it once and get the hang of it there be no problem..... 

[jaapv]

+1. An index to this post could be useful though. Just kidding. You're patient as angels folks.

I did copy that post to FAQ.

[dfdann]

I have a user profile set up and named. When I go to User Profile on the menu it shows this profile Active but red

Line is under Default Profile. If I move line down under my named profile and return to menu the line will be

Under Default next time I go to User Profile. What am I doing wrong? Shouldn’t line remain under my named profile.

Same thing happens when I use FN button set up for User Profile. Returns to default.

Thanks

[ramarren]

Hmm. "DEFAULT" doesn't exist in the FN button active list, the red line stays on the active function setting. Default does exist in the User Profiles, and my camera always has the red line under that when I enter the User Profile list.

 

I think the notion is that you go to the User Profile list to set your profile, not to discover what the camera is set to. There's nothing to do there other than select a user profile.

 

I determine whether the user profile is set correctly for the lens I'm using by looking at the Lens Profile setting on my Favorites page, because it reflects the name of the lens currently in use. This is because I use the user profiles to manage settings per which of my lenses I am using. For other types of usage, I don't look at what its set to, I just choose what I want it to go to. 

 

Should it indicate the current setting? That's an interesting question. I might say Yes, but what about if you manually change some setting from what the camera was initially set for? Then the indication would not be correct, and the only safe thing to do is to put it at Default to start with so that the user can pick what they want to go to.