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
Image Quality Menus
Moving on to page four. We have a built in intervalometer now. So this interval timer will allow you to shoot a series of photos that you can then use a separate program to combine into a video. So this is an example of a intervalometer series that I recorded at winter time. The camera was on a slider, which is how I'm getting the movement from side to side. Recorded about 300 images over the course of about 20 to 25 minutes. So in here normally this is gonna be disabled. If you want to turn it on then you would turn it on enable. Then you could go into Info Detail set and set the interval time and the number of shots on this. So it really depends on what you're going to shoot as to what those numbers should be. I like to shoot images anywhere between one and ten seconds apart and I usually wanna shoot at least 300, maybe 360, images. That'll give me a good 10 to 12 seconds of video once I've compressed 'em all into a video format. The Bulb timer is that long exposure timer so that we ...
can do shutter speeds that are in excess of one minute. You can go in here and set a particular time if you want. Anything over 30 seconds is good time to set a bulb timer because 30 seconds is the longest exposure that your camera has so if you want those streaked lights on the freeway that are much longer than the 30 second ones, you can do a two minute exposure for instance. Normally left on disabled but it comes out for use every once in a while. To go in to be able to program that other information, hit the Info button and then that will enter you into setting the details of how long you leave the bulb timer on. Anti-flicker shooting. This is kind of an interesting one so let's talk a little bit more about this. When you are shooting under fluorescent lights, they have a flicker to them that ranges anywhere from a hundred to a hundred and twenty hertz per second. So what's happening is that the light's getting brighter and darker many, many, many times each and every second. Now if you think about the camera firing at its fastest motor drive rate of 6 1/2 frames per second, well where do those shots line up on the brightness scale? You'll find that some of them are brighter than others and it just kinda happens to be where they happen to fall at that given point in time with how bright the flicker is on that particular light. What this camera has is a flicker reduction system that recognizes the pattern of brightness going up and down and it simply tells the camera just wait for a fraction of a second to the next peak of this flicker on the lights. So that way you get nice even lighting and the brightest lighting of that particular light that was flickering. I found one of these lights in a tunnel that had some artwork there and as I took a number of different pictures, you will notice as I jump back and forth between these pictures the brightness of the lamp and the brightness of the scene change a little bit and it has nothing to do with me and the camera. The camera was on exactly the same exposure the whole time. I then turned the flicker reduction system on and you can see that these are much more closely aligned. They're a little bit different. I think three is a little bit different than two. But they are much, much closer in line. So if you were photographing, for instance, in a gymnasium that used these flickering lights, turning the system on would save you tons of editing time of going through all of your images and adjusting the brightness levels a little up or a little down. So for most people convenience-wise, it's best just to leave this turned on. The slight downside of turning it on all the time is rather than getting 6.5 frames a second, you might get 6.3. I think it's a small price to pay to not having to Photoshop and edit all of your images for slight brightness differences. Mirror lockup. Mirror lockup, camera has a single lens mirror in there, right? That mirror can cause a problem. Let me show you what that problem is. When you take a photo and you press down on the shutter release, the mirror goes up and when it goes up it causes a vibration throughout the camera right when the shutter is opening and you're taking a photo. It's possible with just the wrong setup you might get some image blur in your photograph. The way to avoid this is to put your camera in the mirror lock up, it's enable, and now your camera works in a slightly different way. The shutter release is pressed down and it brings the mirror up. It vibrates the camera as always but you wait a couple of seconds for the vibrations to settle out, you take a second press of the shutter and that is the one that actually takes the photo and then returns the mirror so that you can see what's going on. Now you might think that we're gettin' a little bit picky and we are here. Here's an example of what the effect is. I was in Yosemite National Park and I took this photo. I examined it and I thought wow, that doesn't seem sharp at all and I was using 1/8 of a second on a tripod and my camera was still giving me this blur. I remembered mirror lockup, put it into mirror lockup and I was able to get much, much better detail out of that image. That is because when you're on a tripod, you're gonna get this vibration zone when you use a mirror around an eighth of a second. Even though your camera's on a tripod, unless it's the world's heaviest tripod, it's still gonna have a little bit of movement in there with most normal tripods. So you probably wanna have your camera set to mirror lockup anytime you're in that vibration zone if you really want to get the sharpest photos. You can also put the camera in live view. That is also a different form of mirror lockup. The camera can shoot in different aspect ratios. The sensor on the camera is a three by two aspect ratio but if you do wanna shoot in those other aspect ratios, you can set those up right here and you will see it in the viewfinder. The Live View shooting function is something that we talked about. If you don't like using it or you don't like that button switching the modes on the camera, you can deactivate that feature completely by setting this on to Disable. Most people find it valuable so it's a good item to leave on for most people but if you don't like it, turn it off.
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
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