Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III Tutorial: How to Set Up the Fn Lever 

Thank you for providing a compass for use in the Olympus Menu Jungle.

What a versatile camera, I'm loving mine - thanks Rob!

Your tutorials are very helpful and way more understandable than those from others. Please make a OM-D E1 Mk III tutorial about using different kinds of remote control and of installing camera firmware updates as a Mac OS Big Sur user - this would help me in a very great way!

Rob, thanks for a clear and concise explanation on how to program the FN Leaver.

Thanks for explaining the actual benefits of that function switch. Never even once had it occured to me to use it on my em1mk2 but will start to now. 👍

Rob, I'm delighted that you've gotten around to making one of your superb video tutorials to explain how this under used, yet extremely powerful feature works. For the more Advanced photographer (or someone who has followed your other tutorials to get to grips with the features they find useful) this is probably your most important video. It certainly takes a bit of mental gymnastics to understand how the Function Lever works if we're simply reading the Olympus manual, whereas this video nicely clarifies the practical simplicity of a powerful feature that people avoid because it appears too complicated. I'm a professional photographer who has been using the Function Mode Lever for some time, yet your explanation has also helped me to clarify my own thinking, so that I'm now going to go back and change my own settings. This is a truly fantastic feature that Olympus have given us. Hopefully, now you've demystified its use, many more people will be able to use it. The truly great thing about the lever is that you only need to research what settings you need once, then simply flip the lever instead of trolling through lots of menus or super panel settings. Great job 👍, Rick

Fantastic! Seeing the dial in action with all your samples is so much better than the manual can ever convey. Awesome work, thank you!

Great video Rob. I still have so much to learn about my Em1 Mk3

Thanks for such a clear succinct and unrushed explanation of the Function Lever Switch, the factory restore is a great idea to explain from the bottom up how it all works. I'm going to enjoy looking at your other videos. Thank you.

Great useful video again. You are the only one who was able to clarify Mode 2 Fn lever. Manual and all other resources were useless. Thank you!

Yet again a very clear and easy to follow explanation. I disabled the lever on my Oly camera’s. Might reconsider and go for the af options.

Thanks for this clarification. I initially had the lever set to switch to video which I never use because I didn't understand how to make mode 2 work until now. Now I can switch instantly from single point to CF+Tracking with more focal points. Great work on these videos!

very interesting video again Rob. As i cannot remember everything I will have to save this video as my E-M1 III will arrive tomorrow.

Very well explained. Thanks 👍

This is a very helpful video, Rob! Great explanation. I've been looking for tips about the function lever on my E-M5 Mk III. Even as a long time Olympus user, I still find their menus confusing at times. Lots of power and configurability, but they could use a usability overhaul.

Very helpful, thank you

Thanks. I bought an EM1-iii last Dec. Great overview on the function button. It was helpful to have the "step back" overview. I used it to change from AF to MF for lenses that don't have a MF clutch.

Hi Rob, I've just bought an EM5 III, although a different model your tutorial on the Fn lever for the EM1 III still does apply in many ways to my EM5 and was very handy. I tend to work out a lot of stuff on my own with regard to the customisability of tech products but sometimes learning from someone else that knows it inside out is the most helpful. I do have a couple of questions about the Fn lever and associated functions. Initially I set it up in mode 2 to swtich between two autofocus setups. I thought that would be really handy, working like the autofocus mode lever on other cameras (like Panasonics) but actually being even more useful in that it can also change the target mode & target point, not just the autofocus mode. The Panasonics do have all three SF/CAF/MF on their levers but don't really mind MF not being there when that can usually be set with the focus clutch if an Oly Pro lens, or a switch on most lenses, or even using SF+MF mode in the camera. So initially I found using the lever to switch autofocus mode was great. But after a while I found I didn't like not having a quick way to change the auto ISO limit on the EM5. I prefer to leave the camera in auto ISO most of the time but occasionally change the upper limit so in the moment I can quickly choose my preferred balance between noise and having a fast enough shutter speed for my subject. I could of course just manually control ISO all the time but I prefer the camera to choose it for me most of the time and quickly respond to reduce it when the light improves in a scene, only intervening myself in situations like a scene being darker and it gets to say 6400 and I think, actually this time I can get away with 3200. When I had a Panasonic GX80 I could set auto ISO limit quickly, when changing ISO one dial would do the actual ISO setting and the other the auto ISO limit. I can't see any way to do that on my EM5, have to go deeper to the menu to set the limit. Another quirk of the EM5 I found is that the rear control dial seems to turn in the opposite way that I expect. If exposure comp is set to the front dial then turning clockwise will increase it, countercockwise will reduce it, as expected. It's the other way round for the rear dial, and it behaves that way with aperture, shutter speed & ISO too i.e. counterclockwise will actually increase the F number. I don't really like this and looked for a way to change it, but can't find any way of doing it - even looking in Dial Direction in the menu. I've read a few other complaints about this in posts about the original EM5 so it's clearly stayed the same up to mark III. So I decided to change the Fn lever to switch dial operation instead, that way I could have the default setup in position 1 where the front dial will do aperture/shutter speed in their respective priority modes and the rear dial will do exposure comp, and if I flick the lever to position 2 I have set exposure comp to the front dial where it will now turn in the direction I'm used too, and ISO to the rear dial which gives me the quickest way to choose my own ISO - the closest compromise I could find instead of having quick control of the auto ISO limit. As you show in your video, the relevant setting just turns green so ISO can be set quickly with the dial rather than having to press the ISO button and use the pop up menu to set it. It also frees up the ISO button to remap to something else useful. I also found the dial operation switch useful for manual mode where the front & rear dials handle aperture & shutter speed, instead of having to press the exposure comp button I can switch the Fn lever and control it directly with the dial, freeing up the exposure comp button for remapping too. I did have a look to see if there was any way to assign dial function switching to a button instead of the Fn lever (again a feature Panasonic offer) but it doesn't seem like this is possible? It would be lovely if this was possible, and Oly added a button to the rear control dial (just liked the shutter button being in the front dial) that by default would switch the dial functions so the Fn lever could be used for switching autofocus settings whilst still having the dial function switch available. But it seems like, aside from being able to choose different behaviour for the Fn lever in video mode as your video helpfully explains, you decide what is more important for the Fn lever to do for you and stick with it. So after learning the quirks of the camera in the end I used it for dial operation switch. To get somewhat similar functionality to when I used the Fn lever for autofocus mode switching, I used the 'home point' feature that lets me select a home autofocus mode, target mode and point. I was then able to remap a button to home point, by pressing that button it would set the autofocus to those home settings. The best thing is that the button would act as a toggle, switching between the home point and the AF settings in use before. So remarkably similar to using the Fn lever to switch autofocus actually, only difference being that I have to define one of the autofocus setups in the home point menu. I found that one of the two autofocus setups I used was always just SF with a single point anyway to that seemed to be the best configuration for me - Fn lever for dial operation switch and a button for home point. Just out of interest, I also played around with the custom modes to see if that would be a way I could quickly switch between auto ISO limits or two setups of the Fn lever but whatever I had set the Fn lever to, it would apply across all modes including PASM, C on the dial and C1 and C2 loaded from the menu. I read about the 'Myset' feature that previous Olympuses had and it seems that custom button assignments would indeed be saved to a Myset (don't know about the Fn lever setting though - custom button assignments do seem to save to C modes on my EM5) but whether they could then be applied would depend on whether the Myset was loaded from the menu or assigned to a button or a mode dial item. I even read a user saying that a Myset assigned to a function button would act as a toggle, if the button was pressed again the camera would revert to the settings before the Myset changes? So many little quirks to Oly cameras! Of course Mysets don't exist on the mark III, but custom modes instead. My experience with the custom modes on the EM5 is that pretty much every shooting setting (apart from that Fn lever) saved to C1-C3 will apply to the camera and there is no way to then go back to the shooting settings in use before loading the custom mode. So with regard to auto ISO limits, if there was any way the C modes could act as a toggle I could use that as a way to save one with 6400 auto ISO limit and one with 3200 and have that be the only custom setting that would apply, keeping all the other current shooting settings intact, that would be cool but I think I've pretty much set everything up as best I can for the way I want to work within the limits of the customisability of the camera although any advice you have for better ways to do it would be appreciated, thanks!

Aaah thank you brilliant! Had go stuck in S-AF and MF.

Thanks Rob. That lever has been a source of confusion for me. I’m happy with the regular power switch and the regular movie dial, so the lever seemed to major on duplicating functions that are already there. However, I get that different folk work differently. I’ve settled on Function 2 😊

Thank you Rob for your great and helpful videos..

Hi Rob - thanks for your amazing videos. Just wondering if you have an E-M1 tutorial playlist? I’m trying to find and watch my way through all of them.

Excellent video. I would like to know if there is a way to program the function lever to switch into Pro-capture mode. Or can I program one of the buttons to do this?

Hi Rob great video as always. I often flick between MF and AF what button would you recommend to reassign manual focus to. Many thanks Julie

Thanks

that was super helpful my M1 mkIII will be arriving next week, i want to assign the Fn Lever to movie mode , so lets say i am in aperture priority and say using f8 1/1000 iso 200 when flicking the switch will my movie mode use my A priority settings or my settings from movie mode. thank you i love your videos.

¡Gracias!

Very informative video. As you say some practice is required to take full advantage of the lever (I need the practice). I'm waiting for my EM1 Mkiii to arrive (PX EM1X). However I still have the Mkii, so the video was still useful. Thanks. How are you finding the Mkiii.

Thanks Rob, very clear and good explanation. Why you don't use shutter mode with Anti-Shock ?

Rob, how do you set up Back Focus Button on the OMD E-M1 MkIII? I plan to use the AEL/AFL Button.

Great video but it still got confusing going through the shooting mode. I was hoping to be able to set the lever to a custom setting 1, for example (which is set to back button focus) so that I could toggle between back button and standard focus with the exposure button.

Hi Rob. One more question: The RING "STRAP EYELET" on the right side from E-M1 II + E-M1 III does not make it difficult to use the various buttons and dials like ISO, REAR DIAL and MOVIE BUTTON ? And with a STRAP like Peak Design "SLIDE LITE" ?

Do you think you may be doing for videos for the M1 Mark iii ? or are you not liking it as much as some of the other Olympus cameras. Thanks for all you do. Your video instruction is always easy to understand and highly informative!

Hi! Great video as I am considering the camera. One question: is it possible to switch the eye AG using the lever switch? It would make a lot of sense to me! Cheers

Setting the lever when in M to mode 2 would be handy when ever you have fast moving subjects

Thanks for describing this lever which I now understand is completely useless.

Nice video Rob (they all are BTW). Good to see you are taking the time and use a slow pace to explain various features thoroughly. One question on “mode 2” of the function lever : It changes (can change, depending on setup) the AF mode, AF target mode and AF target point, but what it won’t let me change is the AF Face Priority options (e.g. Face Priority OFF in lever position 1, Face Priority both eyes in lever position 2). Is this correct (and then I think this is an oversight by Olympus), or did I miss something?

Great. Just bought one and I’m pretty overwhelmed, haha

Hi Rob, I'm having trouble with my EM1 iii and its been suggested to do a complete factory reset, not just the Shooting Menu1 reset since that leaves some settings unchanged. But I cannot find out how to do that. Do you know and if yes, are you able to share that info. Of corse, it would be at my own risk. Thanks.

Can I reassign the power button? I changed power button to function lever, and now power button is not used. It would be perfect to use the PB to switch between video and stills mode.

The level of customisation on Oly cameras is impressive and frightening at the same time. Rob, the usual power on/off, can you make it do something else?

that just gave my head a swirly!

On my E-M1 Mk III - I was playing around with setting different FN lever mode settings following your suggestions on the video and now I find that on FN Mode 2 when the lever is switched to setting 2 there is no change in focus from AF. Also, in FN Lever Mode 1 when the lever is set to 2 the rear dial controls ISO but the front dial seems to be disabled. . Is this a camera malfunction or have I somehow made an error in settings? Any suggestion? I did assign MF to the Record button on the suggestion from another video on Macro photography, but I fail to see how this would affect the FN lever. Would you suggest resetting to factory settings?

hi can new om5 instantly switch from photo mode to movie mode using function leaver mode ?

Rob shit that was both interesting and i learned a lot but still not understanding everything. Thats why the em1 series cameras is consider proffesional. Iuckly i can go back and again check the video and try to understand.

Is there a way to customise all 4 buttons of the multi selector

Dear Rob…. Just when I thought I had my set up I’m getting lost again….. My safe place is to be in manual and have front and back wheel adjusting speed amd aperture …. that must be easy …. how domI do that? And what is Fn1? EM1 mk2 thanks

It's so hard to understand - why this "so customizable" camera can not asign to FN some really important functions, like fast switching of shooting modes (Hi-Res mode/silent mode/ etc) or colour presets..Why tho?

I have a problem in that I cannot get out of MF mode

I wish one button had one function clearly labeled… this infinitely variable situation worries me!