Basic Playback

Basic Playback

There are two ways to playback your work: the Quick Review mode and the Playback mode.

The Quick Review Mode

When the camera is in the shooting mode, press the QUICK button to enter the quick review mode:

Initially, the last image on the memory card is shown in the upper-left corner - quarter screen display (left image below). Now, you can use the up and down arrows to move to the previous and next images, respectively. To return to the normal shooting mode, press the shutter-release button halfway down.

If the quarter screen display is not enough, you can press the QUICK button again to enter the full screen display (right image above). Again, use the up and down arrows of the multi-selector to move to the previous and next images, respectively. To return to the shooting mode, press the shutter-release button halfway down or press the QUICK button. When the camera is in full screen display mode, you can use the zoom buttons to enter "thumbnail" 2×2 or 3×3; display, and you can also use the FLASH button to delete images. We shall talk about this later on this page.

There are two important notes:

  1. In the quarter screen display mode, the camera still is in the original shooting mode. As a result, almost all buttons still preserve their shooting meaning. For example, the zoom buttons still zoom the lens, the MENU button brings up the shooting menu, and the SCENE button brings up the scene menu.
  2. In the full screen display mode, the camera reacts as if it is in the playback mode. Refer to the following section for the details. However, just like the quarter screen display mode, press the shutter-release button halfway down or press the QUICK returns to normal shooting mode. This is perhaps the major difference. Therefore, this full screen quick review mode provides a very handy way for reviewing and removing unwanted images.

The Playback Mode

To playback your work, slide the mode selector to the playback position as shown below:

Then, the last image you took appears on the LCD monitor. At this point, you have two choices: (1) view one image at a time (single-image playback), or (2) view thumbnails (thumbnail playback). The single-image playback displays the images one by one, while the thumbnail playback displays the images in a 2×2 or 3×3 thumbnail format.

Single-Image Playback

When the camera enters the playback mode, the last taken image will be displayed on the LCD monitor along with some information. Click here for the details. The following sections review the basic features of the single-image playback mode.

Browsing Images One at a Time

When the camera enters the playback mode, it always displays the last taken image. Now, you can:

Zooming In

It is difficult to detect if the image just taken is an out-of-focus one because the LCD monitor is too small. Therefore, the 2500 provides you with a magnifying or zooming-in capability. To perform zooming in, press the zoom button T. Then, the LCD monitor displays a magnified image. The information shown on the LCD monitor also changes. See the image below.

The upper left corner shows the current magnification, the lower-right corner indicates that you are zooming in, and the lower-left corner tells you that you can use the four arrows to scroll the magnified image. The magnification starts with X1.0 (i.e., no magnification). Pressing the T once causes the magnification to increase in the rate of X0.2 until the maximum X6.0 is reached. To increase this magnification faster, you can also hold the T button until the desired magnification appears.

As the image is being magnified, some part of it will not fit into the monitor. To see these "hidden" areas, use the four arrows of the multi-selector. More precisely, press the left, right, up and down arrows to scroll to the left, right, up and down, respectively.

To return to normal display, press the zoom button W.

Deleting an Image

To delete an image, you have to display it on the monitor. Once the image you want to delete is shown, press the FLASH button. Then, the following screen appears:

If you really want to delete the current image, press the down arrow of the multi-selector to highlight Yes followed by the right arrow to select. After the current image is deleted, the camera returns to the playback mode. However, if you do not want to delete the current image, press the right arrow to select No.

Thumbnail Playback

Browsing a lot of images one at a time is time consuming. Thus, thumbnail playback comes to rescue. When the camera is in the playback mode, press the zoom button W to activate the thumbnail playback. The LCD monitor displays a 2×2 thumbnail images with the frame of the current image highlighted (below left). Pressing the zoom button W again enters the 3×3 thumbnail display (below right). Again, the frame of the current image is highlighted. Press the W button in the 3×3 thumbnail display returns to the full screen display.

Pressing the T button when the monitor shows a 2×2 (resp., 3×3) display changes the monitor to full screen (resp., 2×2) display.

Browsing Thumbnails

Use the left and right arrows of the multi-selector to move the highlighted thumbnail image to the left and right (on the same row), respectively. And, use the up and down arrows to move the highlighted thumbnail image to the image above and below the current one (on the same column), respectively. If this moves the highlighted image to the one that is not currently on the LCD monitor, the thumbnail images scroll up and down.

Zooming In

The zooming in feature is not available in thumbnail image display. To zoom in, you need to return to the single image full screen display by press the zoom button T until the image whose frame is highlighted is shown full screen. Then, you can use T for zooming in.

Deleting an Image

Deleting the image whose frame is highlighted is identical to that of browsing single image. First, highlight the image to be deleted, and press the FLASH button.

Deleting Multiple Images

In many situations, you might want to erase all or several images. It would be a time consuming task if the images are erased one by one. Note that deleting all images on a Compact Flash card can be achieved by Formatting Your Compact Flash Card. However, there are better reasons for not to do so. The next two sections contain the necessary steps for deleting all and selected images.

Deleting All Images

Images can be organized into folders just like your computer files. In fact, your Compact Flash card is treated as a diskette by the camera's firmware and by your computer when it is inserted into a card reader for downloading. By Deleting All Images, we really mean deleting all images of a selected folder. Because there could be a number of folders on the card, formatting a card wipes out every image on the card rather than the images in a selected folder. When you format a Compact Flash card, a folder named as 100NIKON is created and used as the current folder for storing images. As mentioned earlier, the current folder is always shown in the upper right corner of the LCD monitor in both the shooting and playback modes.

To delete all images of the current folder, press the MENU button in the playback mode. The following screen appears:

Press the right arrow of the multi-selector to select Delete. Then, the next menu appears (left image below). Use the down arrow to highlight All Images (right image below).

Use the right arrow to select it and the following screen appears:

Again, use the down arrow to highlight Yes and use the right arrow to select. After this, all images in the current folder are erased.

What if you change your mind? Simple, press the MENU button (or press the right arrow when No is highlighted) and you will return to normal playback operation.

Deleting Selected Images

You can also delete a number of selected images in the current folder. To do so, press the MENU button while in the playback mode. The following menu appears:

Use the right arrow to select Delete and bring up the next menu:

The first item Selected Images is highlighted. Use the right arrow to select it. Then, the monitor displays a 2×3 thumbnail images as shown in the left image below. Note that the frame of the current image is highlighted.

Use the left or right arrows to browse, and the up and down arrows to select the images you want to delete. A trash can icon appears in the middle of a selected image. You can also use the up and down arrows to undelete images. More precisely, applying the up or down arrows to a selected image (to be deleted) will cancel the selection and the trash can icon disappears. The right image above shows some selected images to be deleted.

Once all images are selected, press the QUICK button. This brings up the next screen asking for your confirmation.

This screen displays six of the selected images, and asks you to confirm. If you really want to delete these selected images, use the down arrow to highlight Yes followed by the right arrow to select. Then, all selected images are erased. If you change your mind before selecting Yes, you can press the MENU button (or press the right arrow when No is highlighted) to return to normal operation.