Olympus E-PM2 Super Control Panel (SCP)

The Olympus Super Control Panel is a special hidden control system. As you can see above, it makes viewing and changing settings on your camera really easy. It’s not turned on by default. Here are simple instructions on how to enable it.

I own 3 Olympus Pens, the E-PL1, the E-P3 and E-PM2. I can confirm that all Olympus Pen cameras, since the old E-PL1, as well as the new OM-D have the Super Control Panel (SCP) option — they are all turned on in the same way.

Before you can turn on the Super Control Panel, make sure you have the Custom Menu turned on. It is easy to do and here are instructions on how to turn on the Olympus Custom Menu.

Olympus E-PM2 “Mode Dial” (only on the Pen Minis)

Step 1: The E-PM1 and E-PM2 are the low cost cameras that lack a mode dial. The menu above is used only on these two cameras to set the shooting mode. Simply hit the menu button and click over to the “SETUP” option on on the right and hit the OK button to access the menu.

Other Olympus Pens and OM-D models can directly access the menu without going through this screen. Just hit the menu button.

Olympus E-PM2 Custom Menu

Step 2: Confirm that you have the Custom Menu turned on. If you can see the “2 gears” icon, the Custom Menu is on. If not, here is how to turn on the menu.

The control dial is located in the bottom right corner, on the back of the camera. It has 4 icons surrounding a center OK button. You can simply click down on the control dial to select the “2 gears” icon. Once the gears are selected, you should see menu options labeled A, B, C …

Click on the right side of the control dial to access the A, B, C menus. Click down on the control dial until you select the “D Menu”, as shown above.

Olympus E-PM2 ‘D’ Menu

Step 3: Click right on the control dial to access all the menu options under the “D Menu”. Look through the menu for an option that says “Control Settings” or “Control Setting”. The position of this option varies with the camera model.

Olympus E-PM2 Setting Control Settings

Step 4: Click right to bring up another menu with shooting modes such as iAuto, P/A/S/M, ART. The available Shooting modes will vary slightly by model. With these options, you can turn on the Super Control Panel for a particular shooting mode. I only turned on the SCP for the more advanced P/A/S/M mode but you can turn on the SCP for any mode you like.

Olympus E-PM2 Setting ‘Live SCP’

Step 5: After you select the mode, click OK or right on the Control dial. You will see 2 or 3 menu options on this screen depending on the shooting mode selected. For the P/A/S/M mode, you get two options. Click right on the option you want to turn on or off.

NOTE: Only one option should be turn on for the displays to work properly. In the example above, notice that I have Live Control turned Off and the Live SCP turned on. This is the proper configuration to enable the Super Control Panel. Use the MENU button to back out of all the submenus that you entered.

Congratulations, you are now ready to use the Super Control Panel. To access the Super Control Panel click the OK button. Doing so should display the SCP over whatever scene is showing on your LCD. Use the Left, Right, Up and Down positions of the control dial to navigate to the setting you want to change.

You can change any setting in two different ways. You can click OK to select the option to change or you can simply rotate the control dial to change the settings, in place, within the SCP. With the Olympus E-PL1, which does not have a spinning control dial, you will need to click the OK button to change settings.



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