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16
Part I: Fast Track to Super Snaps
Retracting and unlocking the lens
Some Micro Four Thirds lenses, including the kit lens, feature a nifty retract-
ing feature. When you're not using the camera, you can retract the lens so
that it takes up even less space in your camera bag than usual.
Check out Figure 1-8. The left side of the figure shows the smallest footprint
of the lens at its unretracted position. On the right side of the figure, you see
the reduced lens bulk you can accomplish by retracting the lens.
The key to the retracting feature is the Unlock switch on the zoom barrel.
Try it out:
A zoom lens gives you access to a range of focal lengths — in the case
of the kit lens, from 14mm to 42mm. At the edge of the zoom barrel,
you see numbers representing various focal lengths within that range
(refer to Figure 1-7). As you zoom in and out, you can determine the cur-
rent focal length by looking at the position of the focal length indicator,
labeled in Figure 1-7. For example, in the figure, the indicator shows that
the lens is currently zoomed to a focal length of about 18mm.
Be sure to review Chapter 7 to discover how the results produced by a
given focal length are different on a Micro Four Thirds camera than on a
35mm SLR camera.
Focusing ring: Even the best autofocusing systems have trouble locking in
on certain subjects — highly reflective objects and animals behind fences
are two that come to mind. To save you the frustration of trying to autofo-
cus in those tough shooting scenarios, your lens offers manual focusing.
Before you can focus manually, you must set the camera's AF (autofocus)
mode to MF (manual focus) or S-AF+MF (single autofocus with manual
override). Chapter 7 provides details on how to select this setting.
Unlock switch: If you've worked with a zoom lens on an SLR, it may have
had a Lock switch that enabled you to lock the lens at a specific focal
length. The kit lens, on the other hand, has an Unlock switch. Hmm,
what gives? A really cool retracting feature found on the kit lens and
some other Micro Four Thirds lenses, that's what. Move your eyeballs to
the following section to find out more.
1. Holding the lens by the zoom barrel, press and hold the Unlock
switch forward.
Refer to Figure 1-8 for a look at the switch.
2. Twist the zoom barrel counterclockwise until the lens is fully retracted.
Just to be clear: Twist the barrel toward the shutter button side of the
camera.
3. Release the Unlock switch.
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