Nikon D5200 Custom Setting Menu

Nikon D5200 Guide:
Custom Setting Menu (pencil icon)
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Many of these menu options are often deactivated in anything except the P, S, A and M modes.

Press MENU, click left and then up and down to select the pencil icon (CUSTOM SETTING) menu. You'll see "CUSTOM SETTING MENU" on the top of the LCD monitor.

The D5200 is much better thought out than earlier Nikons, which spread these settings around in three other menus.

This resets everything below back to factory defaults, so play with these all you want without fear.

By default, the FOCUS selection ensures that all your pictures will be in focus in AF-C mode. If the subject is moving a lot, the D5200 may run a bit slower as it tries to focus properly for each frame.

If you'd prefer the D5200 to run full-speed, even if it's not in focus, choose RELEASE instead. I never use this; why would I want out-of-focus pictures?

THe only reason you might want to do this is to take fewer clicks to select among the AF areas as you shoot.

This lets you turn off the annoying AF assist light, but if you do and it's very dark, don't expect the D5200 to be able to focus.

In addition to the viewfinder's focus-confirmation dot, this activates a simple bar graph at the bottom of the viewfinder to help with manual focusing.

If you want the exposure to lock when you half-press the shutter, set this to ON.

I leave it at its default of OFF; I use the AE-L AF-L button when I want locked exposure, and let the shutter button lock only the focus, which it does by default.

This is where you may change the amount of time the various parts of the D5200 stay on, like the LCD, after they've been used.

Making these longer may be more convenient, but also can run down the battery more quickly.

Even more fun, you can set it to make up to 9 shots when it does go off. By having it mae a few shots each time it fires, you're much more likely to get a good shot of your group.

When you set the Release mode to either of the remote-release settings, the D5200 has to stay turned-on, waiting for the signal from the remote.

You can set this to longer times, and likewise, the batteries will run down faster.

If you set the D5200 to expect a signal from the remote control and it sits longer than the number of minutes you've set, the D5200 goes back to sleep.

Set this ON, and a rectangualr grid appears in the finder to help you take level shots.

Set this ON, and the ISO (as well as the automatically-set AUTO ISO) will show instead of the frame counter in the finder.

This lets you ensure that your new pictures don't start from DSC_0001.JPG every time you use a new card. If they did, you'd have hundreds of photos all named DSC_0004.JPG on your computer.

For use with very long telephoto lenses on tripods, this delays the shutter from firing until about a second after the mirror has flipped up.

Use this if you're on a tripod with a long (200mm or longer) lens between about 1/60 and 1 second. At faster or slower speeds, or with a shorter lens, it won't matter.

This permanently burns-in the date, time or other items selected in this menu onto your image.

It's not the invisible data in the EXIF; this is data drawn over the image that you'll see in every print or other use. You'll need Photoshop to repair your images if you leave this on by accident, or forget to set the camera to or from daylight savings time.

MANUAL fixes the flash to one set output. Use this only if you have a fixed setup and need to get just one specific level of flash.

I set mine to AE lock only, preferring to use the shutter button to lock my focus.

If you don't need compatiblity amonng all your Nikons for the past 60+ years, feel free to set these ON so things seem to go in the correct direction.

Back in the 1940s, no one at Nikon envisioned the electronic dials or through-the-lens meters we take for granted today.

If you want to play with your camera with no card, set it to OK. This mode is only here so that Wal-Mart can put cameras out on display and have them work with no card; you would never want to set your camera to OK becaue you could shoot all day without a card in the camera!

Nikons' bar graphs and even mechanical in-finder meters have always read backwards since they were created in the 1960s! On every Nikon ever made, minus goes to the right, and positive goes to the left.

This is because the Nikon F and all of Nikon's SLR system was designed as a simple extrapolation from Nikon's rangefinder cameras, which were designed in the 1940s, when very few people even owned a light meter.

The shutter dials and aperture rings of Nikon's newest cameras still turn in the same direction as they did on Nikon's very first cameras of the 1940s.

When Nikon introduced in-camera light meters in the 1960s, the needles were designed to go in the logical direction as you turned the rings and dials: positive went to the left.

Even after Nikon did away with shutter dials and aperture rings on their cheaper cameras in the 1990s and 2000s, the bar graphs still go the wrong way.

Now that your D5200 has no shutter dial and your G lenses have no aperture ring, you can set this straight once and for all.

Of course the rear dial of the D5200 still works in the same directions as Nikon's 1940s cameras, so if you chose this option, be sure to select set f3 Reverse dial rotation above to ensure the bar graphs follow the dials.