Manual Settings - Which Ones?

[wilbur_wong]

My other camera is 4 x 5, I use a spot meter and take 5 minutes to an hour to

set up a shot and I have been doing so for 35 years.

 

I recently purchased a 5D along with L level lenses for different types of

photography than what is appropriate for a completely thought out composition

with carefully weighed parameters which affects the end result. In the first

few weeks since I have had the 5D, I have found multiple shortcomings for my

allowing the camera to take complete or partial control. Automatic mode went

out the second day and now several weeks later I have found shortcomings at

times with automatic white balance, exposure, focus, aperture, speed, etc.

 

I recognize on the 5D that there are quick light source settings (shade for

example) and so forth. I am virtually now considering going down to full

manual. Although even doing manual focus, there are niceities of having focus

confirmation occur by the camera, and I am very impressed by the Canon 5D's

capabilities. However, I see that I have been beguiled and seduced by the "most

of the time" correct decisions made by the camera and had started shooting

mostly in "P" mode early on, with occasional diversions to Av and Tv. Also, I

have at the minimum have started to shoot with the mode just past "ON" most of

the time (don't know what to call that, the switch looks like a slash followed

by an overline).

 

For rapidly changing photographic situations, the automation is a tremendous

advantage since I can not respond as fast as the camera is capable. However

most situations should allow intelligent selections by the photographer.

 

I would like to know from experience photographers who have been using this or

similar DSLR's and who shoot in RAW mode, what optional settings do you like to

set manually for what percentage of time, and why do you select these as the

manual variations? Conversely, which settings do you allow to go on automatic

and for what type of situations and why?

[digitmstr]

First of all photography is photography, whatever medium one uses (digital or film) the principles remain exactly the same.

 

When I want TOTAL control I put my 5D in M and set the K value manually (and/or shoot RAW) and use a light and color meter for setting the appropriate values.

 

If you want/need to work faster and must use in-camera JPGs simply choose a WB value equivalent to the light source (as you do on film) and use Av or Tv (as desired) with a metering pattern that is appropriate for the subject.

 

For AF I have set CF#4 to 3 so that I use the '*' button for activating AF and the shutter for activating/holding the meter/exposure.

[steve torelli]

Just leave it in "M" for complete manual operation. You can of course select your own WB, I find AWB good enough where I can fiddle with it in post-processing to get what I want if necessary. If you prefer manual focus, you can change focus screens, Canon offers two alternatives that make MF easier, check your user's manual for them. I often auto focus and touch up with manual.

 

I've been using the 5D for six months and agree it's an impressive camera. Personally, I shoot in Manual when I'm on a tripod and AV hand held usually. Many photogs, myself included, use Custom Function 4 to move AF to the * button allowing for seperate AF and metering. Most of my metering is Partial and spot, partial most often. Hope this helps and I hope you continue to enjoy your 5D.

 

Good luck.

[gdanmitchell]

I think I'm pretty much in Giampi's camp. I tend to shoot a lot in Av mode but often

second guess and make exposure compensations settings even there when appropriate.

 

For landscapes and other photography where I have time to set things up and carefully

contemplate the shot I may use Av as a light meter, but then I switch to manual for the

actual shooting, making adjustments if necessary based on what I see in the histogram. I

often do rely on AF at least initially, though I frequently switch it off once I think I've

gotten good focus.

 

Dan

[jon_austin]

I have a 5D and a 20D, a few L zooms and a couple non-L primes. Maybe I'm just lucky, or I just don't have a good eye, but I've yet to touch up focus manually, once I've achieved AF on my intended subject. It's readily apparent to me if the lens has focussed on the wrong subject. I do use MF when shooting very narrow DoF, such as wide aperture portraits and macro.

 

When I bought my 10D 4 years ago, I went from full auto to P mode in about a day, and then to Av a couple of days after that. Now, like several of the previous contributors, I usually shoot in Av mode, except when I'm shooting flash indoors, then it's always M. I only go to TV when I specifically want to freeze or blur action. I never use any of the other modes.

 

I've also never switched away from AWB or used EC/FEC, even when I used to shoot JPEGs, since it's just so easy (for the kinds of photography I do, anyway) to chimp then adjust and reshoot if necessary, and to correct white balance and minor exposure errors (up to 1-1/2 stops or so) in post, especially now that I shoot everything in RAW.

[alan_myers]

Hi,

 

I use a 30D, but many of it's functions are the same as the 5D (I also use 10D and two EOS 3).

 

I use three shooting modes 99.9% of the time: M, Av and Tv. I use in-camera metering in the two auto modes, of course, and some of the time in M mode. I use evaluative metering most of the time, but will switch to partial or spot when there is an overly bright or dark background, for example.

 

I also carry a separate, incidence meter and use it a lot, either to confirm the camera's auto-chosen settings and tweak them as necessary, or to set up in M. I find it an essential tool for balancing fill flash, too.

 

I have on rare occasions used Program mode, but only once in a while when shooting fast and perhaps when my brain just wasn't working very well.

 

I've simply never used the other exposure modes on the 30D (all same as your 5D, I think). In part, this is because I nearly always am shooting RAW files (sometimes with jpegs if we are printing onsite). Also because all my years of shooting film I'm not comfortable with those special modes, am more sure of myself with M, Av and Tv.

 

I'll use Av and Tv if I want to force a particular aperture or shutter speed, and allow the camera to set other parameters around it. This is also most useful to me in rapidly changing situations.

 

As others mentioned, I tend to use Custom Function 4 to set the AE/AF lock button on the back of the camera. Also note that this Cfn can be used to enable or disable AE Lock with the shutter button. That's important when I'm shooting fast in highly variable light, and tracking subjects in and out of different lighting. In that case I'll set AE to no lock with half pressure on the shutter button. The camera's meter needs to reset continuously for this sort of shooting situation.

 

In tricky situations I'll often dial in one third under exposure. I'd rather tweak the RAW file exposure later than blow out the highlights.

 

I rely on auto white balance a lot. Last weekend I was shooting an event in a large barn with big tungsten lights throughout, a fill flash on my camera and spots of sunlight streaming in here and there. Lighting temperature changed rapidly and continuously throughout the day and from location to location within the barn, depending upon the direction I was pointing my lens at any given moment. Thank heaven for AWB! Some tweaking of color balance in the RAW conversion process was necessary, but is just as easily done as exposure tweaking.

 

Probably the thing that gives me the biggest grief is auto focus modes. I come from pre-AF shooting, only bought my first AF camera in 1999. It's probably different on the full frame 5D, but the 30D viewfinder is not very "manual focus friendly". When time allows, I use the center AF point, One Shot mode and the * button to pre-focus on a particular point, then reframe the image. When shooting fast and furiously and working with moving subjects, I'll use multiple AF points and might switch to AI-Servo or even AI-Focus. This relies pretty heavily on the camera to choose the the focus point and lock on. The error rate is higher than I would have if manually focusing or overriding of the AF were more possible (like it is with my EOS 3s).

 

One thing to watch out for is the control dial on the back of the camera. You are probably aware, it can be turned off and on, but the position of the On switch. This is because in many shooting modes it's used to dial in over or under-exposure, and it's pretty easy to accidentally move it while shooting. Just something to be aware of and guard against.

 

As a film shooter, I think you will really enjoy the easily changed ISO on your digital camera.

 

The cameras LCD screen is another very valuable tool. The LCD image playback is helpful, too, but don't rely on it too heavily for accurate exposure rendition. It serves to check composition and perhaps to zoom in and check focus. The histogram gives more accurate info about exposure.

 

The EXIF file tagged to each image you make is another really great feature. It's now dead simple to go back and check all sorts of shooting data after the fact, thanks to that file.

 

[mvw photo]

The mode past ON, a slash with an overline as you put it, is nothing to do with mode. That is just the ON switch. Down is off, half way is on without the big wheel, and up is on with the big wheel. Did you read the entire manual? (I am not being disrespectfiul, just want toknow?)

[keith_lubow]

If you have been shooting solely on sheet film for 35 years, you are probably not an idiot, and know how to make your own choices. You know exactly what to do. Put it on M and then knock the dial off. Just because it has all that other junk doesn't mean you need to use it. Carry a grey card with you to enter the white balance, or shoot RAW if you don't mind the ridiculous file size and extra editing time. I mostly did 4x5 myself when I was first into photography. Yes, switching to 35 requires a lot of adjustment at first, mostly in wht subject matter to choose to shoot. Every now and then shutter priority comes in handy for me, but you still have to know how to fool the automation with exposure compensation and other such tricks. (Although I must say with the sophistication of modern in-camera meters, the results are very good.) Just keep shooting every day and you will find out how to handle the camera very quickly, and in what situations automation might work better than manual control. Even with digital, though, I usually just carry a Sekonic Studio incident meter to decide my exposure.

 

Keith

[lester_wareham]

"I see that I have been beguiled and seduced by the "most of the time" correct decisions made by the camera..."

 

Yes this happens to me also coming from full manual film SLRs, I tend to use Av and evaluative metering which works well most of the time with occasional EC adjustments based on the histogram; I still get caught out though. I do sometimes think it would be best to switch to manual and go back to match needle methods. I must admit I don't even carry my hand meter anymore.

 

I do tend to manual focus quite a lot as I do quite a bit of macro work.

 

The AWB is OK but generally wrong, I either manually set to daylight or use a card from rawworkflow.com. If you shot RAW WB adjustments can easily be made post shoot.

[gdanmitchell]

One other thought regarding "most of the time correct" decisions by the camera.

 

I have never shot large format sheet film, but I can understand the approach that is necessary when

working that way - far fewer exposures and often (but not always) more time to consider and set up a

single shot.

 

To some extent the issue here may also be one of determining the best approach to shooting with a

different type of camera. While one can (and I often do) shoot carefully and methodically with my 5D,

there still are significant differences. For example, I don't feel that every shot has to be "the best one"

with a DSLR - "film" is virtually free and it is reasonable to take many shots of a given scene,

experimenting with exposure, aperture, framing, and so forth in a way that isn't reasonably possible

with LF. In fact, the necessity of ensuring that a very high percentage of the shots were potential

keepers with LF is gone with a DSLR.

 

As an example, I've been known to spend 90 minutes working a sunset from at a particular location,

perhaps making 100 or more exposures. I don't make them without thinking, but rather I make many

as I work to capture different angles, brief moments of the conjunction of light and cloud and so forth,

and experiment with different settings. I _know_ that I'm not going to use them all, but I am free to

work this way with a camera that allows me to easily capture scores of images.

 

I recently read an interesting story by (or about?) large format photographer Charles Cramer who has

begun using digital MF backs. If I remember correctly (I think the article was at Luminous Landscape)

he commented on how using digital allowed him much more freedom to try a variety of takes on a

given subject and changed - in a way he seemed to view as positive - his approach to photography.

 

Take care,

 

Dan

[danielransom]

Start with M mode (fully manual), and add all you know up until now. Shutter is shutter,

f/stop is f/stop,

and ISO is ASA. (Sorta)

 

Where can we see your pics?

[wilbur_wong]

Thanks for the responses, especially the in depth ones. I especially appreciate the suggestion to change custom function 4.

 

In the past couple of days since I posed the question, I have experimented with this setting and now have severed the automatic focus function from the picture taking button. This has been a great boost to my working with this camera as a picture taking device. With Cfn 4 set to 3, a touch of the * button triggers the camera to select focus, I like to use only the central focus point (which also has both vertical and horizontal focusing analysis vs one way only) to autofocus on a main subject. The jury is still out for me regarding a "best" general setting for exposure analysis by the camera. I do check the RGB histogram following each exposure.

 

I am now shooting primarily in Av, make the thumb wheel active for exposure compensation, and use the top dial for exposure shift (aperture vs time values. I appreciate the ability to take advantage of the camera's focusing abilities, yet can manually focus if I choose, even while the lens is set for auto focus AND retain that focus setting when the picture taking button is fully depressed.

 

I am also starting to understand that the relationship of settings such as white balance, which if I understand correctly, still allows the creation a file which is unaffected by that and many other varying settings when shooting RAW, however I see that the "thumbnail" generated by the camera IS affected by specific settings. That is significant in that the initial starting point for DPP appears to reflect the white balance setting which was chosen. If AWB was in use when a photograph was taken in a situation where there is a significant color trend in the scene, DPP starts at what the camera chose for AWB. My personal color memory may be at a difference from the actual situation at a later time, and the starting point may be significantly different from reality. Checking that the generated thumbnail matches the actual scene at the time of shooting appears to provide a fairly reliable work flow for white balance.

 

In other words, I appreciate that I have the ability to tweak the RAW file for what I want the printed result to be, but the closer the generated "thumbnail" is to reality helps a great deal with being able to carry through with my intended results rather than "creating" (if I choose or choose not to) a "reasonable" acceptable result.

 

While it is true that I can use this camera and go completely manual for all settings, that makes for a very limited rationale to use this camera. Of course there is a convenience factor of already being in digital if I choose to output in digital. However my intention in using this camera is to be able to capture scenes and images which require a fast working technique but without having the camera making decisions which might be significantly different from the decisions which I would have chosen.

 

I will continue to make images using traditional analog techniques, carefully considered (those with LF back grounds will appreciate things like focal plane shifts). I will also look forward to using this new tool thanks to your input regarding this new medium.