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Top Deck Additional Features

Lesson 5 from: Canon 1DX Mark II Fast Start

John Greengo

Top Deck Additional Features

Lesson 5 from: Canon 1DX Mark II Fast Start

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

5. Top Deck Additional Features

Next Lesson: Exposure Bracketing

Lesson Info

Top Deck Additional Features

Alright continuing our tour around the top deck of the camera. Over on the left hand side, we have three different buttons that do a variety of things depending on which button you press, which group of buttons, and what dial you turn and so in the middle we have our Drive and AF button. When you press that button, and you turn the main dial, you will be changing the focusing system on the camera, and it has two options for you. It has One-Shot for still subjects and Servo for moving subjects. So when you press down on the shutter release, it activates the focusing system and the camera will focus and the One-Shot mode, it will continue to focus until it finds the subject within the focusing area that you've described, and when it finds it, it stops, which is great for stationary subjects. The other type of system is AI Servo. Now when it detects the subject here, it follows that subject as it moves toward you or away from you. So for sports photography, you want to be in AI Servo, for...

stationary, portrait photography, landscape type photography, you're gonna wanna be in the One-Shot mode and this is one of the first changes I make whenever I go into an action scene is I wanna make sure my camera can track the movement forward and backward so that I can get several shots of the subject in focus. The One-Shot mode works really well because you can focus on a subject and then you can adjust the framing of the camera, the positioning of it to get a more pleasing composition so you can choose to focus on the eye, but then have the eye somewhere else different than you chose to focus it on and so it gives you more compositional possibilities with the One-Shot mode, and so both are used by a lot of different types of photographers, and so that's one of the first changes as I say you make upon entering a certain type of a situation. Now, the AI Servo mode and even the One-Shot mode has lots of little tweaks, there is an entire tab of items in the menu system for controlling the focus and this is something that we're gonna be diving in depth into in the second half of this class in the menu section in that Auto Focus tab. So that is the Auto Focus button on the left side of the camera, when you press the exact same button but in this case, you turn the Quick Control Dial on the back of the camera, you are controlling the Drive Mode of the camera. So when you press down all the way on the shutter release, does it take one pictures, does it continuously shoot photos? And so I think I have my camera set in the single mode right now and just to give you a little sound check on what some of these different modes sound like, (light, single clicks) and so that's just some repeated shots in the single mode. Lemme go ahead and change it to, let's do low speed, we'll build up to the high speed. (slow, rhythmic clicks) And that sounds, I kinda think around maybe four frames a second, I'm not sure exactly where it's set right now, that's customizable. High speed which is gonna be, I think we're at 14 frames. (rapid, continuous clicks) That may slow down depending on the shutter speed you have, I have a little bit slower shutter speed, maybe it get even a little faster, I'll get it to 5/100 of a second. (rapid, continuous clicks) Yeah, there we go, that feels like 14 frames a second. Now one of the options in here is that it has a silent mode. And the silent mode, well it's not exactly silent, it's a little bit quieter, let's listen. (slow, muffled clicks) Now it does have a continuous mode as well. (rapid, muffled clicks) And it makes less noise, it's a little bit slower, now what's going on in the silent mode is the motion of the mirror as it goes up and down is being slowed down so that it doesn't make a big banging sound when it comes all the way up and comes all the way down, and because that slows that mirror down, the whole process slows down a little bit in itself, and so if you are in a theater or perhaps a wildlife situation, those silent modes might be a little bit better 'cause I think they emit just a little bit lower noise in that case. We also have a couple of self timer options in there, a two second self timer, if you're on a tripod and you don't have a cable release, and then we also have the ten second traditional self timer on the camera and so that's with the same button but turning the back dial on the camera, so they're trying to get as much use out of one button as possible. Now you can go in, and you can tweak the continuous shooting speed, so for instance if you don't like the continuous low speed that the camera is at, you can choose a different shutter speed. I know that I shoot a lot of runners, and runners don't look real good at six frames per second because every other photo, I mean they can look good, the problem is that it matches up with the cycle of their strides and so it's better to shoot something either slower or faster so that you get a different mixture of positioning of their legs, and so depending on the sports that you shoot, you may find that some motor drive speeds work better than others. If you wanna customize that, you can do that in Custom Function page four of the Drive System, the continuous shooting speed, and we'll cover that more when we get to that part in the menu section as well.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

CanonĀ® 1Dx Mark II Recommended Settings
CanonĀ® 1Dx Mark II Fast Start Class Slides

Ratings and Reviews

Joe Berkeley
 

I quite enjoyed John's course on the 1DX mark ii. To be frank, I should have taken it 122,000 shots ago when I bought the camera. I learned quite a bit. There were only a few occasions when I thought my cranium could explode. But I walked away from the course with some great tips and in the grand scheme of things, the money I invest in education is always more valuable than the latest and greatest camera strap, lens, or bag. It will probably take a few months for all of the information to sink in but I'm feeling good about what I learned and the price I paid for it. All in all, a good value.

Fred Innamorato
 

John does a great job as usual. He provides so many visual aides and demonstrations which really helps you understand how to operate and set up your camera. His step by step explanation of the entire menu and each tab is excellent. In addition to his many photography tips and instructions. What an excellent class and a great value for all the detailed instructions provided. Much better than the manual you get in the box. Plus you get to watch this as many times as needed. I highly recommend this course and all of John's other classes.

Ian Sherratt
 

Great video. Loved the clear explanations, great views and mixture of video and slides. Iā€™ve read a lot of manuals and books on settings and use of various Canon cameras but this is the first time Iā€™ve really understood the full range of functions.

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