[nanhi]

The Menu system on all Sony Cameras are foolish and stupid.

[DamienW]

The Menu system on all Sony Cameras are foolish and stupid.

I have an Olympus OM-D E-M5ii, and the menu system there also sucks. Otherwise fun camera though, and gives me a similar 'warm and fuzzy' as what Pentax does!

My Pentax gear makes me feel a little more serious (despite my lack of skill), whereas the Oly is fun and easier to carry. Picture quality is not comparable though, as you'd expect, though the Oly does pretty well in most circumstances.

[BigMackCam]

The Menu system on all Sony Cameras are foolish and stupid.

That's an unnecessarily harsh statement. I shoot Sony in addition to Pentax, and it's certainly fair to say that the menus on the older models are poorly structured. "Foolish" and "stupid", though? No. Just not very well thought out...

[Dan Rentea]

This... exactly this...

and then I start wondering what people are doing with so many focus points in their cameras when you really need one that does it fast and accurate. I am almost always using the Center Point or the one at the 3rd 99% of the times. yeah never Auto and never let the camera decide what to get in focus.

What am I missing? How do people really put to use 100 focus points to get good pictures when most of the times just one good cross type is enough. What am I doing wrong here? I find it way easier to get something in focus using center point and recompose than anything else.....
Really curious to know how having a zillion focus points is better than a handful of meaningful cross types. I really need to unlearn the technique that I am currently using cos they may be obsolete.

Depending on the system you use, you have lots of options when comes to fine tune the af. I have both 5D Mark IV and EOS R and except tracking fast subjects like small birds for example where EOS R is a bit slower due to the little lag in the EVF, for events the zilion focus points from EOS R are better than the 61 af points from 5D Mark IV.

1. A lot better coverage on EOS R
2. More sensitive af points on EOS R (on EOS R the af points are sensitive to f11 compared to f8 on 5D)
3. Eye af which can be set on EOS R and also on 5D to ignore obstacles like uncle Bob's hand waving in front of the subjects face
4. You don't miss shots due to focus and recompose technique when you shoot with an 85mm lens at f1.4
5. Touch and drag af is way faster than the joystick and when you shoot other subjects than people and you don't need eye af, you can move the af point in a split of a second with touch and drag af option.

I was using quite a lot the focus and recompose technique on K-5 II, K-3 II and 6D, but after I upgraded to 5D Mark IV I started to use less and less this technique because having more af points on a little larger area helped me to get the shots faster and with less chances of being out of focus at wide apertures. It does take a little practice to change the technique, but once you get used to the new technique you will see the difference.

The "problem" of Pentax cameras which "forced" users to use the center and recompose technique are:
- very few af points to choose from
- the area of the af points covering only the center
- the slow method of changing the af points using the 4 buttons instead of a joystick or a touch and drag option
- the lack of customisation of the af in order to set a different af point when shooting vertically or horizontally

The upcoming Pentax APS-C seems to have a joystick which will help a lot when comes to changing the af point and let's hope it will have more dual cross type af points that will cover a larger area.

---------- Post added 10-28-19 at 07:56 AM ----------

That's an unnecessarily harsh statement. I shoot Sony in addition to Pentax, and it's certainly fair to say that the menus on the older models are poorly structured. "Foolish" and "stupid", though? No. Just not very well thought out...

The latest Sony cameras have My menu which will basically make the most important settings to be available by pressing a button. Therefore, even the most bad menu can become a good one just by having the My menu option.

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Last edited by Dan Rentea; 10-28-2019 at 12:59 AM.

[BigMackCam]

The latest Dony cameras have My menu which will basically make the most important settings to be access by pressing a button. Therefore, even the most bad menu can become a good one just by having the My menu option.

I'd heard that, though I haven't tried any of the more recent models. I'm glad they've added this... It was definitely needed. Even so, whilst I'm no fan of the older Sony menus, I'm used to them and can quite happily find what I need. Pentax menus have always seemed especially straightforward and logical to me, but no menu on any system I've tried is that difficult to figure out. It's not rocket science

[Dan Rentea]

I'd heard that, though I haven't tried any of the more recent models. I'm glad they've added this... It was definitely needed. Even so, whilst I'm no fan of the older Sony menus, I'm used to them and can quite happily find what I need. Pentax menus have always seemed especially straightforward and logical to me, but no menu on any system I've tried is that difficult to figure out. It's not rocket science

Yes, with every menu system you get used to. To be fair, I don't use more than a few options from the menu, regardless of the camera, so learning their position is pretty easy if the camera doesn't have My menu option. Most settings I need and use are aleardy available on the custom butons so for me going to Menu has become less important.

I'm more annoyed about the confusing way of doing the firmware updates on Sony cameras.