Lessons

Lesson Info

Quick Menu

Alright, the Quick button, which we have been using quite a bit in this class, when it's not being used and you're not in some other special mode like the Playback mode, is a quick access to some of the more common features that we're gonna see in the Menu System. And so, when we get into the Menu System in the second half of the class, I'm gonna be repeating myself, fair bet, saying, we already talked about this feature. And in some cases, we might even see it here. But this is a good quick way to go in and change the different types of focusing systems. For the first item, so you press the Q button and then you're gonna navigate up down and left right, 'cause you're gonna have these two lines of information. One on the left, one on the right. First item on the top left is the AF Method. So let's talk about the three different options that we see here. First up is a Face Tracking system, where it prioritizes faces and it looks for faces in order to focus. And if you have multiple peop...

le in the frame, it's gonna choose whatever is the most dominant face, or the easiest one to pick up on. And if you don't want that to be the face, press that little focusing button on the side of the camera to switch faces and it will just jump to the next face in there to focus on. And so if you are focusing on people, this is a really good system for focusing. If you don't necessarily wanna focus on a face, you just wanna focus on a scene, the Smooth Zone is a relatively large area. It's very, very easy to work with, and you can move it left right and up and down if you want. If you're more selective about your focusing points, you can use the 1-point area, which is gonna be a relatively small box and you can move that around and choose wherever you want to focus. And so when you're being very precise, I like the 1-point. General purpose, Smooth Zone is pretty easy, and if you're focusing on people, then the Face Tracking is very good. And so, all of them are good, but for different types of reasons. Next up is the AF operation. There are two different options: One Shot and Servo. So this very much has to do with how much your subject is moving around. In the One Shot Mode, it's great for subjects that are not moving around, they're just stationary. The camera will focus, it will lock in, and then it will stop. The other type of scenario is Servo. This is where things are moving, and so if you wanna have this camera tracking action, sports, action photography. Side note: It's not the best camera in the world for that, so don't set your expectations too high when it comes to the tracking. It depends a little bit on what lens you have on there as well. But it's not as good as some of the higher end cameras when it comes to tracking action, but it can track it and you would wanna have it in the Servo mode if that's what you're doing. Next up is the Image Quality, very important mode here. We have many different options between RAW and various different size of JPEGs. Let's take a closer look at what's happening here. So RAW is going to be the original information right off the sensor, and for anyone who wants to get the highest quality images that have the most flexibility and versatility when it comes to adjusting them after the fact, you definitely wanna be shooting RAW here. It's gonna give you the full 24 megapixels, and it's gonna give you a relatively large file size with all the color information and all the detail from the sensor. Now, it does end up being a larger file size in a proprietary format that not all computers can see. And so, some people prefer the easier to work with JPEGs, easier to work with in that they open up and they're smaller in file size. And they have a bunch of different sizes here in case you have different needs on different file sizes. And so, we have Large, Medium, and Small, and each of these have a High compression, Low compression option, which is gonna result in a different size file. And if you were gonna be shooting JPEGs, I recommend the largest, highest quality JPEG that they have so that you can get the best quality JPEG out of it. But if you really wanna get the best, that's where you wanna be shooting RAW. You can also have the option of shooting RAW plus JPEG if you need quick JPEGs for use right now. Perhaps they need to be uploaded to the web very quickly, and then you're gonna take the RAWs and work with those later on, but that will use more data. And if you don't need those JPEGs right away, it's kind of a waste because with a good processing program, you can take a RAW and you can create JPEGs very quickly and easily. You cannot create a RAW image from a JPEG. And so if you want the best quality, shoot RAW. If you want very good quality and easy access to your images, then you would shoot the largest quality JPEG. Next up is the Movie Recording size. And so if you wanna record movies, there's some different options as far as the resolution and frame rate. If you wanted the highest quality, you want the FHD, the Full High Definition. There's a kind of middle High Definition, and VGA if you just want a small, simple video that perhaps will be transferred on email accounts really easy. You can choose a very small size. There's a number of different frame rates. Standard video shoots at 30 frames a second. In Europe, it shoots at 25 frames a second. You can do double that, in case you wanna slow it down or you wanna have the action look a little bit differently. And this can be changed in the Video System option. And we do also have the option of a "movie" frame rate. This is how a lot of Hollywood movies are filmed at the 23.98P, progressive frames per second. And so most people are gonna probably leave that on the Full HD at 30 frames a second. The Drive Mode controls what happens when we press down on the Shutter Release. You get a single, you get multiple pictures. How fast do you want it to shoot? And so, in the Continuous High, it'll shoot between seven and nine frames a second, depending on how a few other settings are set on the camera. And the Continuous Standard is at four frames per second. Normally, I would leave it on shooting single, Single shooting, unless you are shooting action that you wanna get multiple shots with. We have a Self-timer option down here. We have a ten second, a two second. We also have the option if you wanna use a remote control. And there is kind of a cool way of doing group shots. And let's show you on the camera. Let me go ahead and get into the Quick Menu. And we're gonna come over to the Self-timer Mode. And if I was doing a group shot, I'd probably want 10 seconds to get in the shot, but if I take one picture, somebody's gonna blink. And so what I would use is this Continuous Mode and Info. We can go up to Info, and now we can change the delay. And so normally I would, you know, give myself 10 or more seconds. For right now, I don't need very long. Let's just do five seconds. And for shots, let's do three shots, because that way if somebody blinks, we'll have two more shots. And so in this case I'll set this, and when I set this up, (beeping) it's gonna wait five seconds and then you're gonna hear it take three photos. (clicks) One. (clicks) Two. (clicks) Three. And so if you wanna get a bunch of photos to make sure that you get one that's really good, try using the Self-timer with the Continuous Mode on it. Next up, you can change the Aspect Ratio. I don't recommend changing this away from 3:2, because that's the full image sensor. If you do know that you need a different aspect ratio, the camera will show it to you in the View Finder, which is the advantage of having this system built into it. The Auto Lighting Optimizer is where the camera will go into your JPEG images, and it will adjust the brightness of them. Usually, it's gonna try to protect the highlights from getting too bright, and it's gonna try to brighten up the shadows. And so, what it would do is it would take a normal image, and it's gonna brighten up those shadows and it's gonna control the highlights. And it works well in some photographs, but not all. You can see that more clearly if you look at the histogram. You could look at where that blue sky is, and it's keeping that blue sky a little bit further away from that right, bright side. And the shadow areas, it's brightening up the shadows so that you can see more information into them. And so, this is the type of thing that you would control normally after the fact in some sort of post-processing program, like Photoshop or Lightroom. But the camera will do for you automatically in here. And so, if you don't like the look of your JPEGs, this is one of the ways of going in and tweaking and controlling the way that they look. Next up is the Metering Mode. This is one that not a lot of photographers change, because the standard one that most people use, which is called Evaluative metering, is so good in so many different situations and so it's good in a variety of situations. But three, they do also include a Partial metering, if you wanna measure a small middle area. They also have the Spot metering for a very small area directly in the middle. And then they also have a traditional Center-weighted, which is kind of a big, fat spot in the middle area. And so, most people are gonna leave it on Evaluative all the time, but we do have other options if you like. Next up is Picture Styles, and this is where the camera is going to go in and tweak the JPEG photos to have a slightly different look to them. And so, if you want, you can go in and you can actually have a User Defined 1, 2, and 3 option. So if you wanna go in and control the contrast and the saturation of your JPEGs, you can do that here. For the most part, Canon does a really good job on their color and look of their images, but if you don't like the look of them, feel free to come in here and choose a different option or go in and create your own option. And you can do that by hitting the Info button to dive into the Custom Adjustments. The White Balance controls the color that we are seeing on our photographs and the types of lights that we are working under. And so, White Balance works on a Kelvin scale that goes from red to blue. And sunlight, cloudy and shade. Some natural lighting situations will have slightly different color to them. The one that's most different is Tungsten light. Lot of us have Tungsten lights in our house. And so if you wanna get the correct color on people's skin and everything else in the room, you may need to change it to Fluorescent or Tungsten, depending on what the dominant light source is in that particular environment. We will have a couple of other options. Auto White Balance is where the camera chooses, and to be honest with you, the Canon cameras do an excellent job. And so, Auto White Balance is my favorite default position and where I recommend setting this camera most of the time. There is also the option for Preset Manual, where you would basically photograph a white sheet of paper and the camera would figure out what the lighting is in that particular scenario and it could then correct for it. And so, that would be more of a special case scenario. And then, one final one that it has is that you can adjust the blue and amber look by turning the front dial, and then there's a further color adjustment in the back that you can do. There's a grid that you can go on and tweak the color however you want. Now, I will say, kind of background information, if you shoot RAW, none of this matters, because you can adjust RAW later on and you're getting the full color information. This is more important to people who are shooting JPEGs. And for the most part, my recommendation is shoot Auto White Balance, and then if you're not getting the right colors, then change it to one of the other set options, whether it's Flash or Tungsten or Cloudy or something like that. And then, when you're done with that, switch it back to the Auto Setting. And then our final little option here is to return back to the Shooting Mode. And so, you can use the touch screen on this, or you can navigate up, down, left, and right. And so these are all types of features that many photographers are gonna wanna get into pretty quickly. And if you want, and let's say you don't use a couple of these features and you don't even like looking at them, as having them an option, you can go in and you can customize and edit this particular Menu System by going into the Shoot Menu Number 2. And you can eliminate and add in different options here so that your Quick Menu is customized exactly to the features that you want to use. So lots of different ways to customize this camera. Little Access light let you know that your camera's writing information to the memory card. Don't take the battery out when that light is on.