I know this has been mentioned, probably a gazillion times, but for God's sake why did Nikon swap the zoom buttons? That is very annoying.

I suppose logically. Pluses should be positioned above minuses like a Cartesian coordinate system, but why change now? End of rant.

The camera is far too fantastic to let this annoyance get to me. I will learn to switch rubbing my head and patting my belly. 😡

Scott Chapin
Powder Springs, GA, USA
Nikonians Team Member

Some Nikkor lenses have been designed with the zoom and focus rings in different positions.

There is no rhyme or reason to it. Perhaps one of the engineers pushed the change for just the reason you surmised, but at a point in the design process when the product manager wasn't paying attention to user experience issues. The default exposure metering scale in the viewfinder is also reversed, but at least that's easily changed in CSM F12.

Grrrr.

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I'm wondering if it had to do with IF and AF-S motors and the clutches that allowed for MF override while in AF. Just a WAG from left field.


Anthony

The Moderator Page and My Gallery
The important things in life are simple; the simple things are hard.

Anthony,

I remember retraining myself going from the D200 to the D300. When the D700 was setup like the D300, I was very happy and thought Nikon had it together at last. The lack of AF-ON buttons on the D600 and D7100 consternates me and now this button swapping on the D800. It makes me wonder whether engineering and photographers ever get a chance to communicate.

It does make sense to put that plus above the minus, but it should have been so with the earlier models. Now, they should have stuck with it. I'll just adapt

Scott Chapin
Powder Springs, GA, USA
Nikonians Team Member

Are you aware of the fact that you can program the OK button to an instant medium-level zoom in playback? This will greatly reduce the need for the zoom up/down buttons, as you can check focus with one press of the OK button.

Regards, Antero

That's what I do as well. I rarely use the zoom buttons.

Rick Walker

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Yes, and I do, if you mean the multi selector center button, but old habits die hard. Sometimes I don't want to zoom in to the level that I set it to and I do a deep zoom into the eyes, etc.

Scott Chapin
Powder Springs, GA, USA
Nikonians Team Member

Scott:

Nikon is just doing what it can to support Nikonians.org. If they didn't do stuff like this, these forums would be dead!

Mick
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or
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Either that, or they want me to replace my D300 + D700 with another D800

Scott Chapin
Powder Springs, GA, USA
Nikonians Team Member