Lessons

Lesson Info

Buttons: Top Deck

You won't have your camera right there in front of you want to be working with it just like I'm working with my camera right here first off for the rest of the class just leave your camera on so there's an off and on switch and then when you flip it all the way forward, it goes into the special movie mode where it's only for shooting movies a released its customized for shooting movies there, so if you want to switch between stills and movies, you want to make sure that you have your camera in the right position. The show to release, of course, will be tapping down on this halfway to can activate the camera will be pressing it to take pictures. Of course, the camera has one main control dial it's called the main diets right there on the top of the camera, it's easily adjustable anytime you want to change something on the camera, that's the go to dial that is probably where you're going to be able to do it now. In the back of the camera is something called the multi controller, and I'll...

warn you right now I often forget the name multi controller, and I'll call it the up down key or the mouse or the tab on the back left right up and down, and when I say up, down left and right, it's referring to the multi controller, you could actually go eight different directions on it, and this is going to be used for changing the focusing points where your cameras focusing and also navigating up up and down throughout the menu system making selections. When you find something that you want to select, there is a button in the middle that is thesent button. This is kind of like the enter key on a keyboard it's like, yes, I confirmed. This is what I want to do, so that's the basics on those simple controls so let's, go back up to the top of the camera and talk a little bit in more detail. First off, when you turn the camera on the camera goes to an automatic sensor cleaning system, and it does this because dust on the sensor prevent presents a big problem for photographers. It becomes a little black spox spots in your picture, and the sensor cleaning has a little vibration that it tries to knock off all the duck and it's ah it's, a pretty amazing device, because it doesn't really good job, but it's not perfect. And every once in a while, a dust has a little bit of stick him doing it, and it sticks onto the sensor, and there are other techniques and tools for getting that dust off so I will talk about that later in the class, but just be aware of that's what's going on next up the shutter release button the shutter release button on this camera as it is on pretty much all cameras but not on other devices like phones works a little bit differently and that is is that you need to press halfway down to wake the camera up because battery life is very important the camera shuts down and turns off and I just call it takes a now it goes to nap after as little iss six seconds after pressing the federally so you want to be used to pressing down on the shutter release halfway when you do that, you're also going toe turn on the meter ring system and you're going to start focusing with the camera and only when you press all the way down well, the camera actually take a picture and in many cases the camera must be in focus for you to take a picture. So if your camera is not firing it's because you're not focusing correctly or the camera cannot focus and so you need to leave your finger halfway down and let the camera focus on something and we'll talk about why that may be and give you a hint it has to do with the focusing points and what you're pointing the camera so be very used to pressing halfway down on the shutter release photographers tend to just constantly have their camera right there on the shutter release ready to go it's ah it's almost like they're a teenager in a car at a stoplight just revving the gas they're completely ready to go and so just be comfortable with that halfway press on your camera. All right? The big dial on the top of the camera is what's called the mod dial, and this is the exposure mode of the camera how shutter speeds and apertures are set and it's a critical tool and working with this camera so let's, take a closer look at the modi and we will start at the very beginning, which is the a plus little green box moat. This is the super simple mode on the camera if you I don't want to know anything and just want to go off and take a picture right now put it in the a plus mode and you'll probably be very, very safe for taking basic photos here. It's called the scene intelligent mode because cannon has built a very smart algorithm in this where it actually can determine what types of scenes that you are pointing your camera, whether it's a landscape or sports now the problem that serious photographers have with this mode is that it's a little unpredictable as to what it might choose it's uh it's pretty good as a general all around mode and so if you're going to hand the camera to somebody else to shoot pictures that is the mode I would definitely go with one of the issues I have two issues with this camera number one when you put it in this mode one of the things that happens we'll see if this happens right now there you go, the flash pops up and maybe what you're shooting is too far away for the flash to work let's say you're in a soccer stadium and europe in the upper stands the flash is only going to go about ten feet so it's not going to help you out there help you out at all there the other thing I don't like about the a plus mode is that there's a lot of what I would call child safety locks on the camera where you can't dive in and make some adjustments and changes that you are going to learn in this class how to do so if you complete this class you're probably not going to want to use the a plus mode ever again which is perfectly fine there are modes and features of all cameras that all of us don't use now let's go to the next mode the next mode is exactly the same as the scene intelligent auto mode with the exception the flash will not pop up and so it's maybe one step better in most situations I think the flash off mode is good just because that flash is not going to pop up. One thing to note about it is that if you do even try to press the flash but in the flash it won't come up here, so I'm going to give you some better moz to go along so so far we're over to I don't like either of the two modes here to start with the scene intelligent mode might be nice as I say handing it off to somebody else next up we have the psi aim of the stands for creative auto and this is where the camera is trying to help you take more sophisticated pictures without going into the full manual modes and it's kind of a learning mode and I'm not going to spend much time on it. I'm not a big fan of it and my opinion is is once you're done with this class, you're gonna have way more information and you're gonna be able to control things much better than in this see a mode it's still got a lot of it child safety locks and it's very limiting in where you can set things and have things stick and be there so we're over three now not a fan of that one either next up we have little pictures and these air icons in scene modes portrait landscape close up and sports so these are one stop better you might say, then the scene intelligent know they have a little bit more information about what you are trying to do, and they're going to start gearing things from the motor drive to the focusing system on the camera to tailor it to that type of situation. And so this would be a good learning area just to let the camera kind of do the hard work here, and if you one you can actually look at the lcd on the back of the camera, and if you pay attention to where the camera sets things, you will be able to learn from this oh, in the sports mode, it was recommending the shutter speed and then that might kind of spur you in the right direction, but my guess is that you are not taking this camera to learn how the automatic moz work. We're going to want to get to the more manual modes, but so that they have so they can have even more scene modes. They would like to have a gigantic dial on the camera, but they can't really do that, can they? And so if you go into the scene mode, you can activate that you could get the camera to go in and change many, many other scene mounts and the way that you're going to do this just put it in the scene mode and let me turn the camera here this side so we could get the back of the camera up so you can see what's going on in back of the camel do this live, and so I've put the camera into the scene mode, and what I will do is I'm going go to the back of the camera and press this cuba, and we'll talk about this a little later and you can navigate around what you want to get is up to the top left and you can turn the dial on the top of the camera and you can change as you can see, this is handheld night scene, hdr, bracketing control kids and they could stick is many different scene modes in here is they want and once again a little bit better information than the scene intelligent mode, but the camera's controlling shutter speeds, apertures and everything for you and you don't get a lot of say over what's going on and so have you have fun, knock yourself out, enjoy this sort of stuff, and I think we're going to want to get to the more manual stuff because I think that's where what's a lot of fun about having a camera like this is so that you can jump in and start controlling things yourself. One quick question from the internet while we're talking about seeing modes is from green tog asking, I've heard that pros don't use scene modes, even if the camera has them. Do you like any of the scene modes on the sl one? Or would you use any of them? In real life? I have never used a scene mode for taking a real picture. The reason I don't like it is because suddenly it blocks out roughly half the features of the camera won't allow me access to him so that I won't hurt myself and that's kind of the problem is because I've learned about photography and one of the key things to know about the scene boats that I didn't know at first about them is that there is nothing they do that you can't do yourself, so the camera isn't suddenly going well, we're going to do something special here that you wouldn't be allowed to do if you just knew how to do it, man. And so it depends on whether you know how to do it manually or not. And so if you're going to hand the camera to your uncle to take picture during your soccer game and he didn't know how to work a camera, I don't know anything about photography. Put it in the sports mode that's the perfect thing if right now you need to rush out to your kid's baseball game and you don't have time to finish the class put it in the sports mode and that's the best you can do for right now but once you know what you're doing you'll realize oh well maybe I should make this little adjustment and in that mode you be locked out you can't do it so it's it's it's a learning mode it's a way to take baby steps into learning more about photography it's a good cheater mode so if you want to cheat and which is perfectly allowed in photography totally cheat you could look at somebody else's photographs in like steel exactly what they're doing copy and we see it all the time eh so what you can do is you can put it in the scene vote and you can look at how the cameras set up and go ok so that's what they're recommending and then go well maybe that's not right for my situation I need to tweak it a little bit and then you can go into the other modes and tweak it a little bit so that's what I think about the scene sounds perfect I think that answered green talks question let's continue on okay so moving forward let's get over to the fun stuff here let's put your camera in the p for program mode and what this means that there is a program built into the camera that will set shutter speeds and apertures for you and this little secret here is that it's pretty much the same as the scene intelligent mode except for the flash will not pop up automatically flashes still something that will come up on your direction and the other thing is is that it doesn't lock you out of the features of the camera you have full access to all the menus and all the features going on in the camera and so while I maybe shouldn't admit it every once in a while I will use the program mode on my camera win frankly, the shutter speed aperture combination doesn't really matter I just need a base a photo right now and the simplest way for me to do that is just put it in the program notified see something that I want to change I can just pop in there and change it and so the program is my favorite simple mode and I would say anybody who has seeing my class and watched it and maybe we meet someplace else I've met students who've taken my class when I'm in a national park or even another country I'm going to look down at your camera I'm gonna notice where this is at and if you have it in the little a plus mode I'll be wondering ifyou've watch the entire class s o the p mode is generally a good way to go with the program on it to tell you the secret about the program is that it's looking at shutter speeds and apertures and it's trying to give you a good balance for just general picture taking but it stays is paying very close attention to the shutter speeds it's trying to prevent you from blurring the picture by having to slow a shutter speed for hand holding the camera and so that's kind of the default system that's built into the camera now the problem with program is that it changes on you and so if you said well I want five hundredth of a second cause I'm shooting basket basketball game well you can maybe get five hundredth of a second but then it made changes you move the camera around so one of the things you need to know about the program though it is that this is where the main dialogue comes into play and what's happening here is when you turn the dial in the program out go ahead do it right now but your camera the program mode you can change your shutter speeds and apertures let me turn the camera around and so we could get a shot here on screen so I have my camera in the program out when I press halfway down on the shutter release we can see that I met one eighty eighth of a second and have two point eight, and as I adjust the dial in one direction, I'm changing both shutter speeds and apertures simultaneously. So the camera is figuring out the correct light level, and I could shoot a picture at any one of these settings, and I'm going to get the proper exposure as far as the correct amount of light. But I get to adjust how much depth the field or how fast a shutter speed I have, and so the program with a program shift is a pretty versatile mode now. The problem is, is that once I've set something, I let it let the camera set for a few seconds and I come back, everything resets back to its beginning setting, and so let's say, you get the camera set up for sports photography, but then you kind of put the camera down for a moment. You pick it back up, you get a re dial it all back in, and so it gets to be a bit of a pain for a situation where you're shooting a subject for many different pictures over a longer period of time and so it's a good, quick one shot here one shot their mode next up, let's, turn the cameras mode ill to tv. This does not stand for television. This stands for time value where you get to select the shutter speed and so I'll go ahead, turn the camera around here for the cameras well turned the camera around for the camera. That sounds really good, and so what you get here is you get to select very specifically what shutter speed you want on the camera, and no matter what happens in front behind, anywhere around the camera, that shutter speeds stays exactly locked in. And so if you knew that you wanted a very, very specific shutter speed, you wanted one hundred twenty fifth of a second, you could dial it in here, and the camera is going to adjust the aperture the best that it can for the right exposure. Now, I'm not a big fan of the time value mode, because sometimes you choose a fast shutter speed and the camera doesn't have an aperture that's wide enough to let in enough light, and you'll just end up taking a very dark picture. That's actually quite common with the time value moat and so it's, a bit trickier to use, and I know there's a lot of newcomers to photography that like the time value mode because people generally have an awareness of time like days and weeks and so well, just bring it down to a shorter scale of one second, one hundredth of a second, a thousandth of a second. And so they kind of want to latch on to time value the problem is is that the apertures there's not that many options in the camera and you can often choose a time value that just doesn't work with the ap teachers that are available and so I'm not a big fan of this and so if if anyone's keeping track here I think I'm kind of fifty fifty on the program mode and I'm not a big fan of anything else am I gonna like anything on this option at all alright aperture value this one I kind of like this when I I'm a bigger fan of aperture value is where you get to set the aperture and the camera will figure out the shutter speed so let me turn the camera around here and I'll show you so in the aperture value mode on our camera a v you'll notice on the back screen of the camera there's a couple little orange marks by the f five point six that means that we're in control of the aperture at this time and I can make very specific changes in the ap iter and the camera is right now changing both shutter speeds and I think we have auto eso which is something we'll deal with here a few minutes and it's just going to make whatever adjustments it needs and aiken set that aperture wherever I wanted there's not that many apertures on lenses so this is a pretty easy mode to use pretty much anywhere that you set your aperture you're going to be able to take a picture now would be helpful if you know more about apertures and depth the field in your shutter speeds in order to know which aperture to set but it's a very easy mo to use and I think for somebody just doing basic photography, travel, photography something where you don't know where your next picture is going to be this is a good simple mode that gives you just a little bit of control over final direction of how that picture is being taken and so this is my favorite quick, easy mode on the camera so let's get to the last one on the dial full on manual getting serious now so in the full manual mode you control the shutter speed and the aperture now to control the shutter speed we're going to use the main control dial on the top of the camera that we've been using all along for a lot of her different setting so far but to control the aperture and this is one of the gripes about this camera and other cameras of this sort is that cameras that have only one dial you're going to have to press a button and that button is on the back of the camera it's called the a v button and it's got a little plus minus logo on there as well, and you need to press down on that button as you turn the dial in order to change the aperture so you can see on the camera in front of me. As I pressed down on the aperture button, the little gold arrows changed fromthe shutter speed over to the aperture so I can change the aperture, and I could change the shutter speed. Now where you set them is your choice. There will be a light meter in the viewfinder that will go over a little bit later that will help direct you as too the proper exposure, but you, khun, set any shutter speed, any opportunity want, and you can take a picture and what you get. Well, it depends on some other factors that we're going to get into, but the full manual mode is highly recommended for anyone who really wants to take control of their photography and anyone that is shooting a subject that is not changing in their light source. So let's say, you go to the gymnasium, and you're photographing your kids in volleyball or basketball, or whoever knows what they might be doing in there, and they're under the same lighting system there, you figure out a shutter speed that works, you figure out an aperture that works in a nice, so on a combination there. And you can leave it there for the entire event, and you'll be getting good exposures if it's all under consistent lighting. And so any time you're going to shoot a siri's of pictures of something I like to check the light meter at first, get my adjustments in, and that way things stay the same for the entire event that I am shooting, whether it's a portrait of somebody that might just be a minute long or a long event that might be going all day or most of the day, you don't need to adjust shutter speeds and apertures that much, but there's a lot of different options in there, and my favorite is manual for set up shots shots that you're gonna be shooting for a period of time. My favorite quick mode is the aperture value mode because it does give you a little bit of versatility by just moving that main dial to control your aperture, which we will control your daughter, your shutter speed, which will control your depth of field and kind of as a result, will control your shutter speed as well. The program mode is thie super quick mode, and after that, I would say, just let all the other stuff go for people who don't want to really learn how to their learn how to use all the features of their camera. Most of the people who buy this camera will probably use it in the scene intelligent mode and never switch it off, which I think is it's kind of a shame because the camera has so many more capabilities and you don't really get to take advantage of those until you get into some of the more manual moz, this might be a good time to check in and see if there's a questioner too. And you know, the internet is always great about asking you questions, john all right, this one just in from the q tab from fee fie, why would some photographers like wedding photographers like the p mode? Well, wedding photographer, if we think about what they're doing, they are changing very quickly what they're doing, they might be shooting somebody up on the altar and then they might be turning around, shooting says photographing the mother or father sitting in the pews under very different lighting and they don't have a lot of time they are under a time crunch getting their pictures taken and so I could see them using the program mode I could see them using the aperture value, but I would be highly surprised if they're using the scene intelligent auto mode on their camera and so I can understand the program mode in that situation now, if the church or wherever they were getting married was under perfectly even light, maybe it's an outdoor wedding under a cloudy sky and everybody has the same light, then it wouldn't be as critical, but the program mode is kind of a safety precaution. They're not overly concerned with very specifics of shutter speeds and apertures you probably, I would say you could guarantee won't go to your professional sporting event if you could look over the shoulders of all those photographers down there on the sidelines, they're not going to be in the program out, they're not going to be in the sports mode, they're going to be in the manual mode because they have a very specific shutter speed they want and wedding photographer is not super critical things are moving and blurring that much in a wedding shot, so they have a little bit more room to play with on the shutter speed. All right, another question that was asked early and kind of like a general overall question about the ss one is from lens mac asking, comparing this camera to other canon cameras, older models? How much notable noticeable increase an image quality could I expect in the sl one compared to the canon rebel teo t one I I've been using since two thousand nine okay, so I am not remembering off the top of my head how many megapixels the t one I had? It was something below fifteen megapixels it might be twelve I think it was around twelve and so this is at eighteen megapixels and it's gonna have increased resolution than that it's hard for me to put it in words it's a bit better I wouldn't say that it is overwhelming and knock your socks off type better but it's it's an incremental increase in it you have to really get a very visible noticeable difference in image quality. You often have to double the number of mega pixels to really make a big job and twelve to eighteen is noticeable but it's not double all right, good to know. All right, next question from bob it uh, beginner question kind of like for those of them us just starting out with this camera. What about using a manual mode with a variable f stop zoom lenses? How does this camera adjust to this? Yes, that could be a tricky thing. And right now we have what is known as a prime lands. And so if you say prime people will immediately know that your professional because you know what you're talking about, we don't have a zoom and what they're talking about for those that don't even know about that a variable aperture zoom has an aperture that varies a little bit at the widest end as you zoom from one into the other, and in the manual mode, that can be a little bit of a trick, and you do have to be careful with it, because if you set your shutter speed up and you say said an aperture of three point five, and then you zoom your lands after you set the exposure it might. The aperture might change the five point six and knock off your exposure. And so you do have to be a little bit careful about how you shoot in the manual mode. If you have a very bill aperture, zoom. If you set a relatively small opening let's, say, f sixteen on your camera that will stay the same, but it's only at the very white a settings that you could have a problem. And so, if you do have one of the typical zooms, like the eighteen to thirty five zoom land eighteen fifty five, excuse me, the manual mode. I would hesitate just a little bit more to using the a v or program. So that is the mode ill. So pick your mode and try a few the other ones too all right next up right next to the shutter release is the s o button and this is controlling the sensitivity of the sensor and we're not going to go into a long discussion about it, but one hundred is the basic best setting it's what's known as the native sensitivity of the sensor it's where you're going to get the best image quality of light hitting the sensor and we can up the eye so we can bump it up two, two hundred four hundred, eight hundred and onward and it makes our sensor in our camera mohr sense it lights so it works better under low light conditions and it captures that light and gets you a reasonably good image. And so this camera can go up to twelve thousand eight hundred and if you go into the menu setting, which will do a little bit later, you can turn off one of the little child safety locks and limits on it and you can actually take the camera up to what's known as twenty five thousand six hundred, which will show up as an h and if you press the ice so button right now you won't even see that as an option in there or maybe will depending on if you've turned that honor of you I don't think you will see it at all in there, but you khun actually get up to twenty five thousand now, there is also an auto setting, where the camera will automatically select the best eyes, so for you to use if you wanted to set your camera in a super simple mode where you could just pick up your camera and you didn't have to think about shutter speeds or apertures or esos or any of the exposure stuff, what you could do is you could put your camera in program mode and auto I sl, and your camera is just automatically going to do whatever it can to help you out and taking a picture. It's not how I recommend taking manual control of your photographs, but you will get simple, basic good quality photographs in that case, but once you start learning more about this, you're going to want it make these specific settings of yourself. Now here's, something new had been putting in my camera classes, and for those of you watching this on tape or recorded, this is a place for you to stop the recording, and you can jump in in this case menu item menu set up number four has something called custom function number two in it, and you can go in and turn on the eyes so expansion so that you can get up to twenty five thousand six hundred, and you can then come back to the course right here for those of you watching live not to worry, we will eventually get there, but this is kind of a extra bonus for everyone who buys the course and watching it later and they just go oh, I want to go change that right now. Where is it? How do I do it? And so that's your shortcut on how to do it? You will see that a few more times throughout the class now. I wanted to shoot just a really taste of basic test shot in this camera to show you image quality, and for those of you watching on low band with their small devices, I will give you a verbal analysis of what we're seeing here. So I took a taking a basic shot cropped it and we're looking at the eyes so the grain or the noise at different levels one hundred, two hundred, four hundred, eight hundred all look very, very good. Now the fundamental rule on isil is lower is better, so one hundred will always be better than two hundred, two hundred will be better than four hundred in this camera and onward. If we go right up to the really bad greenie crunchy stuff, twenty five thousand does not look good, it looks like you're using a very old and bad cell phone camera and so you wouldn't want to shoot it twenty five thousand unless it was a last ditch effort. Uh, let's. See, what would you use? Twenty five thousand six hundred for how about taking a picture at nighttime of bigfoot? That is where you might use it doesn't happen very often. Twelve thousand eight hundred is still not looking very good. My general rule of thumb on ice. So is the top two settings are always quite bad. Sixty four hundred and thirty, two hundred are still very visibly showing noise and or this grainy sandpaper look to it, and so I would tend to want to avoid those sixteen hundred does look pretty darn good. I would prefer to use one hundred if I could over sixteen hundred, but I think anything in the one hundred to sixteen on sixteen hundred area is going to be pretty good for general purpose work. You could always push that up to thirty two or sixty four, and I would really try to avoid that. Twelve thousand and twenty five, not itself, one of the things that will be able to do in the ice so is, you know, be able to control a little bit about where the auto eso is, and so you keep those numbers in mind, and so you khun auto select it you can select it yourself what I typically dio is I usually have my camera said it I s a one hundred and then as I go into different types of light I will bump it up as necessary but that's from somebody who really likes to manually control their camera to start with you can throw this in auto but if you really want to learn photography, put it in the manual mode put it I so one hundred two hundred four hundred and start playing with it I think we have a couple of questions maybe your question or to just one question from robert how do I change that? S o does it change just by pressing that that's a good question show and tell me you need tio need to tell the basic operation on canon cameras works like this if you press a button nothing happens okay, you gotta press the button and then you have six seconds in which to turn the main dialling the camera so let me turn my camera around so we could see the back end of it. If I press the ice so button will see the options and if I'm lazy or if I'm very slow it automatically will turn off and it disappears on me so I gotta press the button and then I get I get my finger over there and start making the changes and when I find the one that I like, I can either do nothing or I compress down halfway on the shutter release and it locks that in and so pressing the button activates it you make the change you can let it sit the quickest way to get it can activate it is just press halfway down on the shutter release and we're going to see that same type of action work on other buttons in the camera where you press the button and then you get your finger over to the dialogue that's just kind of the way canon cameras work all right another I also question really quick before continuing on and this is from wedding day bliss who says and s o excuse me an auto eyes so can you tell the s l one a top end that you're comfortable with so like say don't go above I also sixteen hundred and I'm just going to check in the back of the camera real quick and we do have that so this is something that we're going to get to but I'm going to give you a sneak peek right here so in the auto I so you can control what's the maximum number so I think I said thirty two hundred was where the image quality is pretty good so you could limit how high the ice so will go before it starts making other drastic changes potentially with shutter speeds and apertures and so yes, you can do that and I'll talk more about that when we get into the menu center in class thank you. Sure. All right let's continue on our tour of the top of the camera over on the top left hand side we have our mano microphones. So when we were recording videos that's where it's picking up the sound it's not going to be the world's greatest microphone because it is attached to the cameras so it's going to here focusing its going to hear you holding the camera and things like that you could hook up additional microphones and so forth I'll talk about that a little bit later we also have a speaker so that when you're playing your video back you can hear what's going on there was a little tiny funny mark this is not real important but this is the focal plane. This is where the sensor is in the camera in certain types of technical or scientific photography you need to know the exact distance to the sensor and this is just an indicator of where that is inside the camera the hot shoe is where you attach additional flash units they call it a hot you because there's power running through it and communications through the pins on the top there's no danger you can touch it it's it's nothing wrong with it there. But we will be hooking up, flashes, speed lights from canon and talking about those when we talk about flash in a few minutes.