Lessons
Class Introduction
09:14 2Photo Basics
04:00 3Basic Camera Controls
04:36 4Mode Dial
24:19 5Top Of Camera
21:42 6Viewfinder Display
09:18 7Live View Menu
08:16 8Movie Mode Menu
03:03Back of Camera Buttons
04:37 10Quick Menu
22:00 11Playback Menu
08:58 12Left & Right Sides Of Camera
04:39 13Bottom & Front Of Camera
06:28 14Lens Options
08:28 15Menu Functions Overview
22:13 16Picture Style Menu
05:23 17Multiple Exposure & HDR Menu
04:53 18Image Quality Menus
06:47 19Live View Shooting Menu
02:23 20Movie Shooting Menu
15:30 21Playback Menu
06:53 22Set Up Menu
15:07 23Viewfinder Display Menu
02:35 24GPS Settings Menu
04:36 25Touch Control Menu
03:38 26Custom Shooting Mode
05:33 27Custom Menu
26:28 28My Menu
04:41 29Camera Operation
09:31Lesson Info
Bottom & Front Of Camera
Looking at the bottom of the camera we have our serial number, record that for insurance purposes, we have our standard tripod socket so that you can hook it up to monopods, tripods, and all the multi accessories that use that standard 1/4-20 style thread. There's an alignment hole which is used for aligning the BG-E21 vertical grip. So if you do a lot of people photography, this could be portrait photography, sports photography, if you have big hands, if you just want a more stable grip on the camera, the vertical grip is available, it will house two rechargeable batteries in there so you'll have to change batteries half as often, but you will need two batteries in there to make that work that way. But as I say it's as most handy for people doing people photography 'cause it's going to make the camera more comfortable to hold in a vertical position. We then have our battery compartment, it uses the LP-E6N which has been a long-time battery for Canon so it's going to be very common wit...
h other cameras of this nature from Canon. So it's a easy battery to get these days. It comes with a travel charger, the LC-E6 charger, those are supplied, come with the camera. If you want to charge the camera from a car, Canon has their own car charger available. And there is a little rubber door on the inside of the grip you may notice and this is so that you could power the camera continuously, perhaps for studio use or scientific purposes where you can't have the battery run out after 1200 shots. It needs to go continuously forever, you need to be able to plug it in to a power source. If you need to do that, you need two little parts, the DR-E6 is kind of a fake battery that goes in the camera, cord runs out the little side of the door and then you need to plug it into the AC-E6N AC adapter kit. And so if you do need continual battery power, you can get that system to work with this camera. On the front of the camera, we've got a couple of small stereo microphones, they're not the best microphones in the world and so if you do shoot a lot of video and you want to get better quality sound, I can't recommend an external microphone enough. It's just gonna get you much, much better quality than those little built in microphones. We see our mirror, the DSLR mirror reflecting light upwards. It's about as close as we're going to get to the sensor, as I mentioned before, it's a 26 megapixel sensor, CMOS sensor, full frame sensor in size. Over on the grip there is a remote control sensor. And so if you do get the RC-6, it needs to be able to have a line of sight with this sensor because that is how it's working, it's on an infrared system, so it's kind of like a TV remote, so it has about that range. Tends to do better in a dark situation than in a really bright situation. We have a little lamp that is self-timer indicator, when you have the self-timer ready to fire. It's also a redeye reduction lamp that can be used and it's not the most helpful thing in the world, but it can work. Next up, is a little rubber port on the front of the camera and this is a remote terminal for firing the camera. So if you want a basic remote for just triggering the camera the RS-80N3 will do a decent job at that. If you want something that's fancier and to be honest, the extra fancy of this doesn't really play into this camera because this camera has a lot of these features built in. The camera has a long timer built in, the camera has an intervalometer built in. Now this does have a frame count and a light so it's got a few extra features and so some people might find this useful, there's a lot of these out on the market so it's good that you can use these with the camera, but if you just need a basic remote, the RS-80N3 will do a fine job. On the front of the camera is an unlabeled, slightly hidden button down there and this is a depth-of-field preview button. When you look through a single-lens reflex camera like this, the camera is at maximum aperture. And so you get to see everything with this shallow depth-of-field as possible, which does make focusing easy, but it doesn't show you what the image is gonna look like, when you stop the aperture down. And that's why this button is here. So when you press in on this button, it stops the aperture down to the working aperture of what you're going to be shooting that photograph at so that you can see in the view finder, what it's going to look at. Now in most situations I would say just take a photo and look at it on the back of the camera, but under really bright light, it's hard to see the back of the camera. So for landscape photographers for instance, it's very handy to be able to press in on that button and see how much depth-of-field you're going to get. The red dot on the top of the camera is your EF mount index and so that's where you're going to be lining up your lenses for mounting your camera. Let's do a quick little demo here with my camera. I always find it interesting when somebody gets their first interchangeable lens camera, they're very, very cautious about changing lenses. And it's really quite easy folks. Let's turn this around here so that you can see what's going on and so we have our red dot here on the top of the lens, we have our red dot on the camera, we just make sure it's lined up and we give it a click until you hear this nice little click, that means you've done it properly. You typically don't want to leave your camera without a lens on it for any great length of time because dust can get into the mirror box housing which can then get into the sensor a little bit more easily so, try to limit the time and do it in safe environments, not like in a sandstorm. You don't want that dust and sand getting in your camera. The lens release button you'll need to press to unmount the lens, you heard that little click, there's a lens lock pin that kinda pops into a little notch in the lens that lets you know that you've got it in there properly and that the CPU contacts are then communicating with the lens. You want to make sure that these contacts are not obstructed or broken in any way, if they are it's going to cause a communication error between the body and the lens.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Warren Gedye
John, this is my second class of yours I'm taking on Creative Live. You are a very unique and articulate instructor. Your knowledge, understanding and experience in all matters photography is astounding! You have certainly fine tuned the knack in imparting your deep knowledge in such a palatable way! Your slides are magnificent, simple and concise and caters directly to your audience. I can only imagine the hours upon hours of time spent making these valuable slides. I look forward to many more of your courses!
a Creativelive Student
Always enjoy all of John's classes, but especially this one since I've decided to upgrade from my previous 6D. Awesome camera and this one is so much quieter than the older one. Thank you for explaining things in terms and ways that are easy to understand!
Tim Rogers
Thanks for a very useful course John. Not to get out and enjoy the new toy. Wish I had done the similar course for my previous camera (60D); will be recommending it to the person I am giving the camera to.
Student Work
Related Classes
Camera Guides