Canon Camera, Hackers Manual

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C H A P T E R 4 Teach Your Camera New Tricks
4.2.5 User menus
The number of entries in the CHDK menu is quite overwhelming. Searching
the same items again and again and stepping through the submenus can
be quite tedious. The CHDK therefore offers the option to organize the
most important menu items (favorites) into a user-defined menu. This
menu is, by default, accessible through
ALT > MENU > OSD Parameters > User
Menu . If you try this, you will find that the user menu only contains a single
item, Main Menu, that leads back to the main menu. This item is always the
first item in the user menu.
Now, how do you configure your own menu? It’s quite simple: first, you
switch the user menu into editing mode. Then you add menu items from
the main menu by selecting them:
1. Set the entry User Menu Enable to Edit .
2. Navigate to the menu item that you want to add to the user menu.
3. Half-press the shutter button to add this item to the user menu. On
some cameras the FUNC or ERASE button is used instead.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for more entries.
5. To remove menu items from the user menu, navigate to the user menu,
then half-press the shutter button (resp. FUNC or ERASE ) on the item to
be deleted.
6. In the menu OSD Parameters, set the entry User Menu Enable to On or
OnDirect . OnDirect will automatically launch the user menu when you
switch to the <ALT> mode, saving you a click on the MENU button. The
MENU button, however, can still be used to launch the main menu or to
leave all menus. Alternatively, you can set User Menu Enable to On and
enable the option User Menu as Root . This will immediately launch the
user menu when you press the MENU button in <ALT> mode. Another
click on MENU will close the user menu. With this option set, the main
menu can only be reached through the first entry in the user menu.
4.2.6 Grids
In the analog days, an exchangeable ground glass was mostly a feature of
professional cameras. Today, many professional and semi-professional
DSLRs still offer the option of exchanging the ground glass. Some of these
screens come with etched grids, which can be especially useful for architec-
tural work and micro- or macrophotography.
With digital compact cameras and their electronic viewfinders, grids
can be easily shown on the camera’s display. Most of these cameras come
with a few built-in grids. For example, my SD1100 offers the option of dis-
playing 3:2 guides and a 1/3-rule grid. The 3:2 guides allow for easier
Figure 4-10
Two items control the configuration of
the User Menu. Here, the user menu is
switched to editing mode.
Figure 4-11
A configured user menu. The first item
always leads to the main menu; all
other items are favorites. As a result,
you can change the most important
settings very quickly.