Lessons
Class Introduction
04:29 2Photo Basics
04:53 3Basic Controls: Auto Modes
10:42 4Basic Controls: Manual Modes
14:11 5Basic Controls: Back of Camera
25:33 6Back of Camera: Quick Menu
09:38 7Back of Camera: Play Back
05:07 8Left, Right & Bottom of Camera
03:35Lesson Info
Back of Camera: Quick Menu
The Q button. Very important button. This is the Quick Menu. This is a shortcut to some of the most important features of the camera. You know, turn on the back screen of the camera and will show us various information about what we are setting on the camera. So, the first little box up there in the left hand corner is gonna be controlled by where our Mode dial is set on the top of the camera. This can be very handy if your camera is mounted up on a tripod and you can't see the top of your camera. You'll be able to see where your shutter speeds are set and if you wanna change it on the back-screen of the camera you can do it there; you can also do it with the dial on the camera. Same thing goes with our apertures. We can see it in the back or we can see it in the viewfinder as well, and of course we can change our ISO settings as well. And you'll notice it says H instead of 12,800, that's just to indicate that it's the highest setting there and that it's going a little beyond the norma...
l. It's also kind of a warning that it's a little bit different and it does a little bit quality from the other settings, and so that stands for high, it's one stop higher than the previous setting 6,400, so it is double 6,400 so it's 12,800. Next line down we have our exposure compensation. We were just talking about this but we can see this in the back of the camera. So in this case auto-exposure bracketing is like the exposure compensation but this is where the camera automatically does it for you, and you can have it shoot a series of photos that are either a stop or two stops apart. And so we can use this with the Program, Time Value, or Aperture Value mode. You'll shoot three frames and you can shoot'em in various different increments and it's a very quick way of getting a bracketed series of pictures that cover a wide range of exposure. So if you're not sure about the exposure, this is a quick way as I say, to get three quick photos that covers the entire range that you might need. So let me do a quick little demo on the Bracketing mode. In this case I prefer to use Aperture Value so that I can be specific about what aperture and I'm gonna choose f/8 cause I like f/8; that's a good aperture there. And I'm gonna let the camera figure out the shutter speed, and so I'm gonna hit the Q button, and I'm gonna navigate my way down to the bracketing here, and I'm gonna turn this dial so then I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do it pretty extreme so you can really see a difference. I'll do it one and two thirds of a stop bracketing, and I'm gonna hit Set, and now you can see where these exposures are gonna be; three different exposures. And in this case, I am gonna press down and take the first picture, and that's probably the normal one, and then we'll probably take the dark one, and then we'll take the light one, and then it's ready to do that whole series again. And so if I go back and play with these, you can see minus or this one's plus one and third, minus one and a third, and back at zero, and so a quick way of setting them. Now I wanna make sure that I reset this back to zero so I'm gonna hit Q, hit set, turn it back down to zero, and then hit set, and now we're back reset to zero. And so exposure compensation good for potentially architectural photography or landscape photography. Flash compensation, this is where you can control the power of the flash. Let's take a look at some examples here. Talked a little bit about this before cause there's a warning in the viewfinder. The camera normally fires off with what's known as TTL Flash, which is where the camera figures out how much flash you need, and just sets it. But it's sometimes a little bit too powerful for portrait photography. Sometimes you wanna power it down one or two stops, and depending on the brightness of other subjects in the background, minus one to minus two might look a lot better than what the camera's trying to figure out on its own cause it doesn't totally understand skin tones versus background, and the difference between them. And so if you do a lot of people photography, I recommend just setting this to minus one; I think that's a good starting point for many, many different types of photography. If you need more you can dial it in, if you need less, you can make that adjustment. Next row down, Picture Styles. This is where you can go in and control kind of the color, and saturation, and look of your images. And so if you are shooting raw images which we'll talk more about, this has nothing to do with the final image that you get; this is just an imaging manipulation that will control the JPEG images. It's a can to the old days of shooting different types of film that either had more or less contrast to them. For the most part, I would just leave it in a standard style unless you're really trying to do something specific that you know you want for a period of shots. But the standard one should give you good, clean results for your typical photograph. White balance, there's a button on the back of the camera, we've already talked about it, but it is here so that if you wanna work with it in this screen you can. The Auto Lighting Optimizer is a mode where the camera looks at your JPEG images and it manipulates them a little bit to improve them. And so what it typically does is it takes a photography like this where the shadows are a little bit on the dark side, and it lightens them up just a little bit so that you can see what's going on there a little bit better. If you do a lot of people photography, this is kind of nice to have cause it means you don't have to go into Photoshop or some sort of program, and try to lighten up the shadows to see what's going on in there a little bit better. Problem is is that it's not something that you wanna have on in all types of photography, and if you are shooting in raw, this is the type of adjustment that you can make very very simply with most/any program that's available on the market. And so for your more serious photographer, I don't think it's a great setting to use. For somebody who just wants basic, simple shots out of the camera, it's not gonna hurt too much. We can also trigger our flash to move it up electronically here. There's a button on the top of the camera but if it's so high up, you can't see where that button is, you could trigger it right here. The Autofocus mode, there is a button on the back of the camera. We've already talked about it so normally, like I said I'd leave it in the One Shot mode and I'd put it in the AI SERVO mode for action and sports photography. The drive mode, we just talked about this. Same controls just available at a different area. The Metering system is how the camera reads the light coming in through the lens. The Evaluative system uses 63 zones, it looks at all the zones, it compares them, contrasts them, and kinda comes up with a final solution as to what it thinks the best exposure is going to be, and it's what I would recommend, it's what most people who shoot Canon shoot with most of the time. There is a Partial area which is 10% of the area which is like a spot meter if you wanted to measure the skin tone of a portrait for instance, or you wanted to measure a small area of the scene. There are some people who like to do that types of photography usually with manual photography. And then there's also a more traditional Center-weighted which is what was used on traditional and classic cameras, but most people are leaving this in Evaluative and it's doing a very good job. This one is a very important one. This is the Image Quality. This is how the finals are stored on our camera and the basic choices are either JPEG or RAW images. The RAWs are pretty clearly labeled here. You either get a RAW or you can get a RAW and a JPEG at the same time, and then there is a variety of different sizes of JPEGs. And so if you are wanting to shoot manually, if you're wanting to control and adjust your images in programs in the computer afterwards, you definitely wanna be shooting RAW cause that takes all the data off the sensor, keeps it as pure as it can when it first achieve or was recorded by that sensor, and that's what you get to work with later on. If you want a little simpler workflow and you want images straight out of the camera that are ready to go and put up on the internet or on your website, or something like that, you may just wanna shoot with basic JPEGs. Now I would recommend shooting with the largest sized JPEGs which is that top left setting, the L with the smooth line on it. What that is, is that it's the highest quality JPEG the camera can shoot, and normally you're gonna wanna shoot with the highest quality image that you can, unless you know very specifically that you do not need a large size file. If you're gonna be photographing something and it's gonna be going on a website in a small image file size, you can choose to shoot it in a smaller file size at that point. But if you're unsure, it's probably better to be safe and shoot it large, that way you have as much to work with later on as possible. And we'll see this again when we get into the Menu settings. Down at the very bottom, little indicator for your battery and then the number of exposures you have left, and that will of course be determined by the types of files you are shooting, RAW or JPEG, and what size of memory card you have in the camera. So all of those are in the Quick Menu. We do have a number of items that will be seen two or three times with buttons on the back, they're in the Quick Menu, and they're in the Full Menu as well just so that you can access them as many different ways as possible.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
May Brown
Thank you so much John Gringo!!! This class was fantastic!! I have learnt so much about my camera an setting it up properly to use!! I am so grateful for taking your course. I will be looking into the starter kit soon!! Thank you also for the pdf manual!!! I'm so excited!! Its like you turned on a light out of darkness with my Canon Rebel T6 Camera!! God Bless you!
Myrta Rivera
I learned so much about my canon camera in this course. John is an excellent teacher because he shows you and demonstrates the functions of the camera so you can really understand it. I feel so much more knowledgeable about my camera now and feel more confident to take better photos. Thank you John!!!
Kylie
This class was great! I've had my Canon Rebelt6 for a year and a half and now I finally feel like I know how to use it! He does a great job reviewing all of the functions of this camera.
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