BASIC CAMERA SETTINGS - Method One

There are two ways to use high-Speed Crop Mode effectively. My favorite way is to simply set up one of the D2x's four Shooting Banks as a special cropped shooting mode, and switching to that mode when I need the cropped 2x capability.

The second method involves setting Custom Setting f4 so that the FUNC button on the front of the D2x turns crop mode on. It's not my favorite way to set HS Crop, because I like to use the FUNC button for Spot Metering instead. But, I shoot a lot of nature stuff, where others don't. I'd say the second method is the most popular, so we'll look at it first.

Look at the pictures above for a sequence of screens to set the FUNC button:

Once you have Custom Setting f4 set to High-Speed Crop, you can then use the FUNC button and Main Command-Dial (rear) to turn crop mode on and off.

Simply hold in the FUNC Button and rotate the command dial one click in either direction. (see pages 4 and 205 in your manual) You'll see a little rectangle start flashing in the bottom left hand side of your camera eyepiece viewfinder, and some tiny brackets will appear in the tiny rectangle on left bottom side of the Top Control Panel LCD. See picture below:

Other than these small changes, the only way you'll be able to tell that you are in cropped mode is that the four corners of the crop rectangle in the viewfinder will light up at the same time the selected focus indicator does. I'm sure it will be easy to forget that the camera is in crop mode, so pay attention once you've selected it. (See pages 41 and 42 of your D2x manual for details)

Remember that the FUNC button/Command-Dial toggles the High-Speed Cropped Mode on and off. Learn to recognize when your camera is in cropped mode, and when it is not, if you are using this method.