Custom Settings

[mary_beth_aiello]

I have a Canon 30D, love it, but was just wondering about custom settings -- in

camera sharpness, contrast, saturation and color. I currently have sharpness

on 3 (of 7), and am keeping the rest in the middle.

 

Generally, what settings do you recommend. Many thanks.

[geoffs1]

<p>I recommend ignoring all the image controls and shooting raw.   ;-)</p>

 

<p>Custom Function 04 (CFn-04) set to 1 is one of my favorites; it moves the AF (and IS start) to the "*" button on the back of the camera.  This allows you to separate the AF and exposure-lock behavior in a more intuitive way (IMHO).</p>

[sknowles]

I'm not familar with the 30D's custom setting features (have a 5D) but would suggest reading

the manual and trying them. You won't know what your camera can do until your go through

all the features to see what works for you. And you'll likely find you don't need most of them

beyond the default setting. I have a few custom settings for some circumstances but use one

most of the time, incuding the "*" for the AF button. It's comfortable for me. Good luck.

[bobatkins]

Canon chose the default settings to please most people. By a general definition, the default settings would be "best" for most users.

 

If you want to change them, you need to experiment and find the ones that YOU like better.

[colinsouthern]

Unless you're shooting RAW (and I agree with Geoff by the way - only way to go) then all you can really do it change them one at a time and see the difference.

 

Unfortunately, the settings you like best in one scene, may not be the best ones for something else.

[mary_beth_aiello]

Thanks. I've never shot RAW, and am rather intimidated about it, to be honest.

[m_barbu1]

Don't be. As long as you keep the (RAW) original, you can always recreate the JPEG from the (RAW) source.

[geoffs1]

Mary Beth Aiello, "I've never shot RAW, and am rather intimidated about it, to be honest."

 

In many ways it's simpler than JPEG because you don't have to make all the processing decisions while shooting.

 

Here are some good articles to get you started:

 

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/pdfs/understanding_digitalrawcapture.pdf

 

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf

 

https://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

[robin_sibson1]

Another vote for shooting RAW. Apart from ISO*, the digital settings have no effect on the RAW image. They do affect the embedded JPEG, and there are some that it may be helpful to tweak for that reason. If you feed your RAW files into Digital Photo Professional, an increasingly attractive way of working, then the settings provide the defaults for it. You will quickly learn what settings you most often choose in DPP - for example, your preferred level of sharpening - and then you can save time by using those as your camera settings. If none of the available Picture Styles does what you want, it is easy to create a custom style based on one of the standard ones. Once you get to that point, you can make any further adjustments on the camera if you know it will be helpful. For example, I have just been doing some portraits using Canon flash units as studio flashes with umbrellas etc. so I set WB to "Flash" rather than "Auto" and found no need to make any WB adjustment in post-processing.

 

*and possibly highlight control on the latest cameras - I don't think it is yet properly established EXACTLY what this does, and in particular it may not be possible to reproduce it exactly by a combination of underexposure in the camera followed by boost in post-processing.