Canon 40D - what default settings would you change for general photography?

"EAL" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 5 Jan 2008 08:53:39 -0500, "Mark B."
wrote:

"EAL" wrote in message
. ..
The question would apply to many cameras, but I'm playing with my 40D
right now...


I have the 30D, but the questions you asked apply to both...

For general shooting, I suppose (possibly after a few weeks) most
would set the control dial to P.

Nope, I shoot Av most of the time.

That suggests indoor shooting with an external flash, or situations
where DOF is important, plus you are not going to use the main dial.

Whether you shoot P, Tv or Av makes no difference to the picture you
end up taking, assuming you DO use the main dial, because all three
modes will give the same shutter and aperture settings.


See below - indoors I typically shoot manual with external flash - I start
at 1/60, f/5.6, and ISO 400. I'll shoot lower ISO if possible, and adjust
the aperture and shutter speed if necessary.


You might shoot raw, or not, depending on how much space you have left
on the card.

I shoot raw 99% of the time.

Might not be an option if your CF card is nearing its capacity.


Never been a problem with a pair of 2GB cards (along with a couple 1GB) and
a portable storage device, though I haven't had to dump to the psd too
often. On the 40D, I'd go with a pair of 4GB cards. Cards are too cheap
not to have enough.


What about the default contrast/sharpness settings?

Not necessary with raw.

Would you set a single focus point instead of 9?


I leave it on the center, and move it to one of the other points when
necessary.

What about the flash sync speed... it's pretty annoying to have the
shutter do a 1/2 sec exposure when you want a close-up of some object
that is in some shady location.


Go to manual exposure, and bump the ISO to 400 - higher if necessary.


When shooting flash indoors or shade, I put the camera in Manual and let
the
flash expose automatically. In well-lit situations when I just want flash
for fill, I'm usually shooting in Av and I'll usually dial in a negative
flash exposure compensation.

Good suggestions on using flash.


Other suggestions?


Experiment - there's no film to waste, just your time :-) Really, the
best
way to learn is to play around with the settings to see what works. There
is no single setting that works in all situations.

Yes, to a point. Properly done experiments are very time consuming.
I've taken hundreds of shots just testing the autofocus on a previous
camera. If you set out to experiment with such things as noise levels
at different ISOs, comparing in-camera sharpening with P-P sharpening,
diddling with exposure levels to improve dynamic range, and so on, you
will spend weeks on it. Smart people learn from what others have done
if the info is available. I would rather be taking pictures.

Ed

I do a bit of both.


Good luck,
Mark

In rec.photo.digital.slr-systems EAL wrote:

I find it puzzling that the 40D, a fairly advanced camera, is
seemingly designed for the point-and-shooter, with all those basic
settings on the control dial,

The DSLR beginner is well advised to avoid these settings, in order to
learn the basics of manual control. Once that's been done, he is then
in a position to start learning how to be able to take proper
advantage of those "basic" settings. Hopefully by that time he has
gained enough technical confidence not to be embarrassed by being seen
to use a camera setting that a P&S user would use :-)

--
Chris Malcolm DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

EAL wrote:

The question would apply to many cameras, but I'm playing with my 40D
right now...
[What settings to use]

My "default" settings: (20D)
- RAW only
- AWB (not too important, since I use RAW anyway, seldom
changed)
- AI Focus
- continous shooting
- Matrix metering
- Flash 1/3rd stop underexposure
- no exposure compensation
- AF field: Center only (changed for flash shooting since E-TTL(2)
considers the active AF field as important, so focus&recompose
is a bad idea there)
- ISO 400 (changed as needed to 1600, or in rare cases to
100/200)
- Tv preset to 1/80s (I might change that to higher speeds
some day)
- Av preset to f/5.6
- M preset to 1/250s f/5.6 (for flash use, mostly, or when
unchanged light conditions are expected and overexposure due
to small area reflections might be a problem --- eg polished
metal under clear sky.)
- P on the dial --- for these quick-quick shots, otherwise I may
as likely use Av or Tv, though I have learned that P usually
strikes a good balance between aperture and exposure --- usually
going earlier to fast exposures than I do, and, it turns out,
rightly so.
- SET button to "change parameters" = PA-1 - all default
(0 == middle) --- very rarely used
- Long Exposure noise reduction (dark frame substraction) ON
- Flash sync speed in Av: AUTO (I use M if I want something
else)
- Shutter halfpressed activates AE-lock, not AF + AE-lock;
AE-lock button activates AF, not AE-lock
- AF-assist: external flash only (no ugly AF-flashes from
internal flash unit)
- Exposure in 1/3rd stops
- Flash fires (I change that if I use the flash for AF-assist
only)
- ISO expansion (H/3200): OFF (my ISO 3200 is ISO 1600 + 1 stop
underexposure + 1 stop push in postprocessing, which gives the
same image (the camera also just pushes 1 stop for ISO 3200),
but keeps an extra stop for highlights.
- Bracketing: 0, -, +, no auto cancel (used with AEB set to
somewhere between +/-1 and +/-2 stops for HDR, if needed)
- Superimposed display ON (lights relevant AF field(s) in
viewfinder)
- Menu: previous entry (so I can jump back and there again)
- Mirror lockup disabled (I enable it sometimes for tripod
exposures)
- AF selection NORMAL (no quick selection shortcut)
- E-TTL II evaluative (not average), so that reflections can
be ignored
- Shutter: 2nd curtain (but with flashes that can set that
themselves (e.g. 550EX) you need to tell the flash or it
will be ignored!
Doesn't work with Canon's Master-Slave (IR) multi-flash
system --- probably due to good technical reasons (you'd
need an accurate clock in the slaves --- and it still
wouldn't work correctly work with "bulb"!)
- Safety shift on Av and Tv ON (i.e. if I set 1/1000s, and
it's too dark (or too bright) to compensate with the
aperture, even wide open, the camera reduces my time preset
as a last resort)
- Lens AF stop button function: Default AF stop (since I
don't have such a lens, it doesn't matter to me).
- Add original decision data: ON
(This is a fingerprint of the image + EXIF (MD5), encrypted
(SHA1) with a camera key. The "data verification kit" contains
a smart card[1] that also can do these steps, so it can prove the
originality of the data --- and the handful bytes is completely
invisible in the MBs of image. Since it costs me practically
nothing and may one day be very important ...)
- 50mm f/1.4 with lenshood in normal position, lenscap on (I
very often change that often to whatever lens I want to use,
but this combination fits best into my camera bag and it's
my low-light lens (and I do lots of available light shots),
so I think it a good compromise.
- battery grip attached with 2 LiIon batteries (always there)
- neckstrap attached to camera (left) and battry grip (right).


I take care to reset the camera to these settings (mostly ISO,
M/Av/Tv presets, set to P), so I can kind-of use the camera blind
and know what the camera is set to when I pull it from the bag).

-Wolfgang

[1] the implementation in hardware makes the secret camera key(s)
extremely harder to 'steal' compared to a software program that
can easily be inspected and observed, especially when it runs.

Thanks! Pls see comments within.

On Wed, 9 Jan 2008 20:03:29 +0100, Wolfgang Weisselberg
wrote:

EAL wrote:

The question would apply to many cameras, but I'm playing with my 40D
right now...
[What settings to use]

My "default" settings: (20D)
- RAW only
- AWB (not too important, since I use RAW anyway, seldom
changed)
- AI Focus

OK, AI focus changes automatically to AI Servo when the subject starts
moving... but AI Servo isn't going to change focus if the subject is
stationary, and also changes only if the subject moves... so it seems
AI Focus and AI Servo are really the same... or can that be? What's
the diff?

- continous shooting
- Matrix metering
- Flash 1/3rd stop underexposure

I presume this is when using flash for fill.

- no exposure compensation
- AF field: Center only (changed for flash shooting since E-TTL(2)
considers the active AF field as important, so focus&recompose
is a bad idea there)

Probably would make it a *good* idea...

- ISO 400 (changed as needed to 1600, or in rare cases to
100/200)
- Tv preset to 1/80s (I might change that to higher speeds
some day)
- Av preset to f/5.6
- M preset to 1/250s f/5.6 (for flash use, mostly, or when
unchanged light conditions are expected and overexposure due
to small area reflections might be a problem --- eg polished
metal under clear sky.)
- P on the dial --- for these quick-quick shots, otherwise I may
as likely use Av or Tv, though I have learned that P usually
strikes a good balance between aperture and exposure --- usually
going earlier to fast exposures than I do, and, it turns out,
rightly so.

Some of the points below I have to think about some more.

- SET button to "change parameters" = PA-1 - all default
(0 == middle) --- very rarely used
- Long Exposure noise reduction (dark frame substraction) ON
- Flash sync speed in Av: AUTO (I use M if I want something
else)
- Shutter halfpressed activates AE-lock, not AF + AE-lock;
AE-lock button activates AF, not AE-lock
- AF-assist: external flash only (no ugly AF-flashes from
internal flash unit)
- Exposure in 1/3rd stops
- Flash fires (I change that if I use the flash for AF-assist
only)
- ISO expansion (H/3200): OFF (my ISO 3200 is ISO 1600 + 1 stop
underexposure + 1 stop push in postprocessing, which gives the
same image (the camera also just pushes 1 stop for ISO 3200),
but keeps an extra stop for highlights.
- Bracketing: 0, -, +, no auto cancel (used with AEB set to
somewhere between +/-1 and +/-2 stops for HDR, if needed)
- Superimposed display ON (lights relevant AF field(s) in
viewfinder)
- Menu: previous entry (so I can jump back and there again)
- Mirror lockup disabled (I enable it sometimes for tripod
exposures)
- AF selection NORMAL (no quick selection shortcut)
- E-TTL II evaluative (not average), so that reflections can
be ignored
- Shutter: 2nd curtain (but with flashes that can set that
themselves (e.g. 550EX) you need to tell the flash or it
will be ignored!
Doesn't work with Canon's Master-Slave (IR) multi-flash
system --- probably due to good technical reasons (you'd
need an accurate clock in the slaves --- and it still
wouldn't work correctly work with "bulb"!)
- Safety shift on Av and Tv ON (i.e. if I set 1/1000s, and
it's too dark (or too bright) to compensate with the
aperture, even wide open, the camera reduces my time preset
as a last resort)
- Lens AF stop button function: Default AF stop (since I
don't have such a lens, it doesn't matter to me).
- Add original decision data: ON
(This is a fingerprint of the image + EXIF (MD5), encrypted
(SHA1) with a camera key. The "data verification kit" contains
a smart card[1] that also can do these steps, so it can prove the
originality of the data --- and the handful bytes is completely
invisible in the MBs of image. Since it costs me practically
nothing and may one day be very important ...)
- 50mm f/1.4 with lenshood in normal position, lenscap on (I
very often change that often to whatever lens I want to use,
but this combination fits best into my camera bag and it's
my low-light lens (and I do lots of available light shots),
so I think it a good compromise.
- battery grip attached with 2 LiIon batteries (always there)
- neckstrap attached to camera (left) and battry grip (right).


I take care to reset the camera to these settings (mostly ISO,
M/Av/Tv presets, set to P), so I can kind-of use the camera blind
and know what the camera is set to when I pull it from the bag).

-Wolfgang

[1] the implementation in hardware makes the secret camera key(s)
extremely harder to 'steal' compared to a software program that
can easily be inspected and observed, especially when it runs.

["Followup-To:" header set to rec.photo.digital.slr-systems.]

EAL wrote:
On Wed, 9 Jan 2008 20:03:29 +0100, Wolfgang Weisselberg

OK, AI focus changes automatically to AI Servo when the subject starts
moving... but AI Servo isn't going to change focus if the subject is
stationary, and also changes only if the subject moves... so it seems
AI Focus and AI Servo are really the same... or can that be? What's
the diff?

AI Servo does not do AF-assist and is exposure priority (i.e.
shutter goes off even while the AF is still working) and more
things like "tracking" and "predictive AF" (where should the AF
focus to, based on the observed motion of the subject?)-

AI Focus is basically an "intelligent" switching between One Shot
(default) and AI Servo. Though I'll set AI Servo for sports
rather than rely on AI Focus for each shot.

- continous shooting
- Matrix metering
- Flash 1/3rd stop underexposure

I presume this is when using flash for fill.

Nope, for that I'd use -2 stops (or rely on the flash automatic,
depending on brightness). I just feel that my flash
sometimes flashes a bit stronger than I want it.

- no exposure compensation
- AF field: Center only (changed for flash shooting since E-TTL(2)
considers the active AF field as important, so focus&recompose
is a bad idea there)

Probably would make it a *good* idea...

f&r does *not* work well with E-TTL, unless you use flash
exposure lock.

-Wolfgang