How Soon We Forget!

A funny thing happened to me yesterday; I was stumped trying to figure out how to set up something on a friend's new Nikon dslr!!

I have been using Nikon equipment since 1983, currently own 6 Nikon dslr's I use with a kids photo club I run (D200's and D1X's). However, about a year or two ago I purchased a Canon 7dmk2 and it has been my main camera since then. I also purchased a Canon T3i (gave it to my kid) and a T6, which I use for travel.

So, I have become so used to using my Canon' that Nikon seemed somewhat foreign and confusing to me yesterday!

Has anything like this ever happened to you? Have you forgotten how to use your old equipment after switching to another brand?

Just proves the point is the best tool is the tool you know. Brand is really very little of it.

Sometimes I've forgotten how to access a sub area that contains the setting I want to change even between Canon models. I know what I want but have to fumble through areas to find it.

I shoot two brands (Canon=personal, Nikon=work) so I switch between them all of the time. It doesn't take long for me to do the switch between them for items that are used all the time like shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focus mode, metering mode, image review and deletion, timer, live view and such. But changing things that are rarely changed like image review time, change grid size, turn on/off exposure simulation and other less use items sends me back to the manual.

Yeah, it happens especially when you don't return to the previous brand in years. The know-how is there, it is just suppressed by the new brand know-how. If you thinker harder, the memory will return and you knock yourself in the head saying "How could I have forgotten".

I had been shooting with a Sony A6500 and programmed the camera exposure lock and lens (when applicable) focus lock buttons to access Eye-AF. I recently purchased an A6400 to use in tandem with the A6500 as a two camera shooting setup.
The A6400 has continuous Eye-AF and doesn't need a button to initiate the Eye-AF. Yesterday, I was shooing with the A6500 but, thought that I had the A6400 and wondered why continuous Eye-AF did not kick in

I started with Canon DSLRs (T3i then 7D), then moved to Olympus M43, and just recently bought a Nikon D750 and it was crazy learning on it. The Olympus is tough screen and doesn't have that many physical controls, and I still remembered the 7D setup from muscle memory, but the D750 was so different! The biggest thing that threw me off was the shutter speed being adjusted on the rear and aperture on the front; I immediately changed that. The ISO button still throws me off, but I'm getting more and more used to it. I realized after a few weeks of having it that I had absolutely no idea how to change the AF to continuous; luckily I got to the place the job was at earlier and had time to look it up.

A bit off from this yet similar. The in-laws had their newish TV setup but it included a variety of foreign channels they don't watch. I went to help them remove those channels from the listings. Sony's menus are so convoluted layer under layer along with the remote that accesses those functions. Like 5 menus layers down I found the remove channel selection. LOL Our Panasonic and Samsung TV's are super easy to access add-remove channels.