What's On the Menu 3

Welcome back to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Given the weather in Hohenfels, we’re going to stay and learn some more about our cameras.

Today we're going back into the camera menu. The first 2 parts can be found here and here), so get ready to follow along in your manual and with your camera.

Today we’ll cover 2 tabs, one has 2 settings, and the other only has 6. Most of them I don’t worry too much about, as I’ve set mine up the way that works for me. You may want to try them and see what you do and don’t like, as with anything we’ve done so far.

Starting at Shooting Tab 3, we have 2 settings; the first is Dust Delete Data. This allows you to take a shot, and using the spots caused by any dust, append that data to your images. Canon’s DPP program will automatically delete the dust spots, based on the data obtained. To use this feature, take a white sheet of paper, set your lens to 50mm or longer, and your focus to infinity. When you select ok, then set, the sensor is cleaned, then you will need to fill the frame with the solid white sheet of paper, and shoot a shot from about 1 foot away. When the process is complete, all future shots will have that data appended and have those spots noted corrected in DPP.

The second setting on this tab is One-Touch RAW+JPEG. This tab allows you to shoot a RAW image if you’re only shooting JPG, or a JPG image if you’re only shooting RAW. This allows to you to get 2 different copies of the same image. Since I only shoot RAW, I never use this. Shooting RAW+JPEG takes more space and allows fewer images to be captured on your card.

Moving on to Shooting Tab 4, the first selection is Live View Enabled. This allows shooting with Live View. Live View allows you to shoot using your display instead of your viewfinder. The downsides of shooting in the mode are you can’t use the viewfinder, the sensor is exposed the entire time, and heat builds up from the sensor and displayed being powered up. There is another downside, as you will see on the next selection.

The next selection is AF Mode. This controls what type of auto-focus mode used. There are 3 choices. The first is Live Mode. This uses the live View screen for focusing, which is slower and less accurate. The second is Face Detection Live Mode. This uses a larger focus zone, and requires a face looking at the camera. Again, it is slower and can be less accurate. The third is Quick Mode. This allows focus using the same dedicated auto-focus sensor used during viewfinder shooting. This is quickest and most accurate when using Live View.

The next choice is Grid Display. This allows you to superimpose a grid on your screen. It’s useful for composing images, but not much else.

The fourth choice is Expo Simulation. Enabling this feature allows the screen brightness to vary according to your shot settings. It will get darker with less exposure set and brighter with more exposure set. It’s an artificial view, as the aperture doesn’t change, nor does the shutter.

The fifth choice is Silent Mode. There are 3 choices here. Mode 1, which allows for continuous shooting, with somewhat reduced noise, Mode 2 which means that you can only take one shot at a time, this minimizes noise, but requires release of the shutter button after every shot and disables continuous shooting, the last choice is Disabled. This mode is primarily for shooting with accessory lenses and non-Canon flashes.

The final choice for this tab is Metering Timer. This changes the amount of time your camera displays your exposure settings when taking a shot.

That’s the end of the shooting tabs. After these comes your playback tabs. We’ll cover them in future What’s On the Menu posts.

Enjoy the rest of your day, and remember to cast your vote for next week’s theme. Get yours in to have a say! Don’t forget to get your pics posted at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too!