Transferring Setting from one to another

[cupic]

I have purchased a near new D300s and have found some intriguing setting left by the former owner.I would like to transfer this onto my D300.
Some Tech wizard here to give me a step by step process in this


cheers

[arthurking83]

What kind of settings?

WB presets? .. CSM ?? .... Shooting Menu's?

What you could try(never done this, only know about it) ... go to the Set Up Menu(spanner menu).
(if you are at the Format Memory Card setting) Scroll up and find the Save/Load Settings menu item.

Obviously you save the settings by using the Save Settings -> OK item.
Doing this saves a .bin file onto the root of the memory card.
D300s has an SD and a CF card. Make sure you use a CF card!! .. make sure that any CF card you use on the D300 is also usable on the D300s!!!

With the saved .bin file .. could be something like NCSETUP.bin ... on the CF card and now out of the D300s and into the D300, go to the load settings menu item and see if this loads the saved settings file into the D300.
Also, if it does work, post back .. I've always wanted to know exactly what this does.

Hope this helps.

[davidd]

Hi

Arthur has given you the correct procedure, but I am not sure if D300S settings will transfer into a D300. You can only try I suppose...

[arthurking83]

Hi David.

So if I've saved one of these settings files, and two button reset my camera, it'll restore all my previously saved memory banks and other settings.

if so, then cool.

I'm assuming that this .bin file is based on firmware values.
D300s and D300 have different firmware types so I'm also thinking that the D300s settings may not transfer onto a D300 too.
Where it may stall is that there are some settings that are availabe in the D300s(video, horizon level, memory card options, etc) that can't be written to a D300 firmware so it will just not load up.

I'm pretty sure that it'd be safe to attempt, all that would happen is that the loading of the file will simply not take hold and no changes would be made.

[gqtuazon]

I've done this a long time ago with my D700 and D7000 but with Nikon NX2 and windows 7.

Load the picture controls onto your camera and import them into Capture NX2. Here's how I was able to do it.

1) After loading the picture controls onto my D700, the picture controls are still on the CF card. I inserted the card into my computer's card reader so that the picture control files are in:
E:\NIKON\CUSTOMPC\name of your picture control.NCP


2) Start NX2 and open a NEF


3) In the Develop section open Camera Settings and under the Picture Control section, click on the menu icon.


http://www.nikonians.org/dcfp/user_files/174907.jpg

4) In the menu that pops up, select "Load Custom Picture Control Settings"

http://www.nikonians.org/dcfp/user_files/174908.jpg

5) Surprisingly, NX2 was smart enough to find the CF card and display the picture controls on it.

6) I selected both picture controls (Ctrl left click on each in Windows) and clicked the OK button

http://www.nikonians.org/dcfp/user_files/174909.jpg

These are the colours that I get after loading the picture control.

http://images.nikonians.org/galleries/data/15018/Nikon24-120mmf4_091.jpg

[cupic]

The setting or personal ones that the former owner used on the D300s
In the shooting Menu bank
A General
B Low Light
C Action
D Raw Max

as I cant see them on how he has set them up and I would to copy theses on to my Shooting Menu Bank

As for the picture i have done this to my D300 previously

cheers

[arthurking83]

I suppose then you'd have to go through each and every setting item, whilst each specific memory bank is set to active and just copy the settings the previous owner has set up on the D300s to your D300.

The save/load feature is simply for when you have to reset the camera to factory default (two button reset) and then want to quickly set it up as before.
Or if you had two same body cameras and wanted to set them up the same way without the tedium of doing so manually.

I think that with some firmware updates all memory settings may have been zeroed out.

It seems that the previous owner had specific setups in mind, and they are probably more obvious than you may think.

eg. for Action, they probably set something like Auto ISO to a specific min shutter speed and check things like focus tracking setting and AF-On button.

Of course we have no idea about what settings each memory bank has been set with, but the last one looks curious.. and we can only assume what they've set.

I'd be looking at NEF quality settings(12 bit or 14 bit)? .... and going by the named memory bank, check to see if they've enabled something like ADL too.
Many people assume that by setting a lot of in camera features for raw files, they get improved image quality straight out of camera, and in some limited cases this is true, but as it's a raw file format, the in camera settings don't follow on into your computer's software when rendering the images(unless you use Nikon's software).
They really only help with rendering a jpg file.