Hey guys. This is Janine from Pangolin Photo Safaris, and today I want to share with you
my five favourite Canon camera hacks, that are going to make your life so much easier.
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So, when you get your camera fresh from the store, and you unbox it, there are a few settings that make
your life a little bit difficult when it comes to wildlife photography.
Here are my five favourite camera hacks that will make your life out in the field, a lot easier.
#1 is your set button.
According to factory settings, your set button is turned off, and often doesn't do much.
Some people put the magnification on, but quite frankly we have a designated button for that.
...and we are normally not in a huge hurry to magnify our images. There are two settings we can place on
the set button that will actually make a huge difference (time wise) when it comes to wildlife photography.
The set button is such a useful button, because as we grab our camera, our thumb falls
down there...very, very easily. If you are one of those photographers that enjoys back button focus,
I must admit your thumb becomes quite busy...but that's why we are born with a thumb. So, there are two options
for your set button. No.1. If you shoot like most of the Pangolin crew on manual,
with an automatic ISO, it becomes difficult to adjust your exposure...and the reason for that is that
our wheel here in the back, is occupied with changing our aperture
...and our adjustment wheel on the top is occupied with changing our shutter speed. Therefore, there is no
dial left anymore, in order to adjust our exposure compensation. We would naturally
have to go into our quick menu by pressing Q. Dial up, and therefore change our exposure.
Quite frankly, that takes too long. In wildlife photography, we must be able to change our exposure
while looking through the viewfinder...and therefore, it would be handy to adjust our set button.
Any custom control adjustments can be made in the quick menu, under the camera icon down here.
Alternatively, you will find it under our menu in the orange setting. In the Canon 1DX MK II, it would be
under the sixth chapter. Another note on the side - very, very easy - if you want to navigate your menu swiftly....
you can jump through chapters, simply by pressing the Q button, without having to scroll
through every sub-chapter individually. That's quite handy to know.
So let's go back to our set button. We enter custom controls and you'll see we have a little diagram
of our canon camera - whatever model you might have - and every single button will be highlighted.
In every newer camera model from Canon, you will have the option to adjust
the set button. We are going to scroll to the right hand side, with the dial by your thumb.
There is the set button, and you can then choose the plus and minus sign. The first model that was able to
shoot on an automatic ISO, with your manual setting (and still adjust the exposure) was the Canon 1DX MK I.
If you own one of the very first models, you might have to download a software update,
and install it through the CF card slot on our right hand side, in order to have the option available,
to choose to adjust your exposure compensation. Once we chose that, the option is available to
press the set button now, and use the adjustment dial on the top, in order to adjust your exposure
swiftly and quickly. If you do prefer to shoot aperture priority, this is a waste
of space, because we can change our exposure compensation simply by using the bottom dial.
Then, we can program the set button a lot more useful. For instance, by choosing to change the ISO.
Currently, we can only change the ISO quickly, by finding one of the small buttons on the top right
hand corner. Pressing that, and then adjusting our ISO. If we go into the ISO menu, we cannot
see what effect the ISO has currently on our shutter...and in wildlife photography, that is
the only reason we change our ISO. To achieve a different shutter speed in aperture priority.
If I go through the quick menu, in order to change my ISO,
I run into the same problem. I don't know what effect the ISO has on my shutter. So I am going
to have to guess how high to bring my ISO, in order to receive a desired shutter speed.
If we now program our set button, to take over the function of changing our ISO, we circumvent
that problem. Now we can easily adjust the ISO while looking through the viewfinder...
by pressing the set button, and using the top dial, you will see the immediate
effect on your shutter speed. For wildlife photography, that is absolutely crucial.
Both the gained speed, as well as the immediate feedback from your information.
#2. The joystick. When we get our camera brand new, that joystick is actually deactivated.
As you know, in wildlife photography, we often shoot AI SERVO to be able to track our subject.
...and for that reason, we have to shift that focus point a lot, in order to compose
our image. We are going to lose a lot of time, if we can't access our joystick immediately.
When you unbox your camera, your joystick is not immediately active, through your
viewfinder. You will always have to press the button on the top right hand corner first,
to activate your focus window, and be able to choose a certain location for your focus point.
If you do shoot wildlife photography a lot, you are going to have to shift your focus point, because
we often shoot on AI SERVO. To have to press an extra button before shifting it, is a major time loss.
So, all we're going to need to do, is go into our custom controls. Go to the joystick sign,
and select the function to assign. That will activate your joystick, and now you
can immediately shift your focus point around, whenever you are busy focusing.
#3. My third camera hack for Canon, is to re-assign the * button. For all of the photographers out there,
shooting on back button focus, you probably have come across the problem, where you activated
the star button by accident, and locked on exposure that you never intended on...and suddenly your image
is all out of whack. You're either completely over-exposed, or under-exposed, and you have no
idea what actually went wrong. Until you see that little star sign flashing in your viewfinder.
The best way is actually to turn that button off, or to reprogram it. So, the easiest thing
to deal with the star button - if you do not use your exposure lock frequently - is to go to your
star button...and simply go from the star to AF-OFF. Alternatively, you can reassign it
to another option. However, you must be aware that you might be touching any other option by accident.
So, for me, the only other option that makes sense, is to also assign it for metering
and auto focus. In my case, I chose a custom design, where you can tick whatever you would like to
be activating with the star button...and I have an auto focus area selection
of nine focus points. So, in my case I can focus on a single focus point, with the AF-ON button, and on
nine focus points with the start button. If that is not an option, simply have both buttons activated
as focus buttons, and you will never run into the problem of locking your exposure by accident.
#4. My fourth Canon camera hack, is my highlight tone priority.
Number four is a quick one, but is so helpful. You will find tone priority in the menu...
under your red menu, and it is usually turned off. It is something I have only learned recently about,
and it's really handy to enable it. It will show up with a little D+ sign,
so that your ISO indicates the D+ below. All it does, is that it gives you a wider
range of tones in your highlights, so that you do not burn your images so quickly.
Or, let me put it this way...if you happen to burn them, you have a bigger chance of retrieving your
highlights, and getting information out of them. It is a really useful function to have activated.
#5. Last but not least, I would like to talk to you about your auto focus tracking and sensitivity.
My fifth and last camera hack for today, has to do with our focusing system.
If you can adjust your tracking sensitivity, as well as your acceleration and deceleration for tracking,
you can make a huge difference to your bird and flight photography.
Many of my clients ask me about the option under your autofocus chapter - to choose different cases -
and you might have noticed that all these cases are specifically laid out for sports scenarios.
It then becomes quite difficult to apply to a specific wildlife scenario...in that moment.
It doesn't always make sense. So rather than using these presets, that are already adjusted, you might
notice that I have little grey arrow marks sitting above, that are currently overriding my case.
So, what you can do with most Canon cameras - even if you don't have the autofocus chapter available -
is to program those in your green custom menu. You will see I have a tracking sensitivity,
and acceleration/deceleration tracking configured here. If you would like to add these two items,
you go to configure. Select items to register...and go through your menu
until you find the relevant menu points. So, once you have these two points registered under your
green setting, you can quickly and easily adjust them...and it will override any other case.
In my case, I like to have my tracking sensitivity locked on...and my acceleration/
deceleration tracking, all the way on +2. That is my standard outcome, and what it does,
is that once my focus locked onto the subject, it becomes more sticky. It becomes more locked on.
It will not easily slide off. So, if a bird is swaying in the wind - on a reed for instance - and my focus
point slightly slides off to the left and right, it will not start searching for the focus, but rather
stay focused on the given bird. With acceleration/deceleration tracking,
I would like it to be nice and speedy, because we are working with wildlife that moves fast.
Even though this is my base settings, I often come to adjust it, because a locked on tracking
sensitivity means that our camera takes a moment longer to focus on something new.
So, if you are in a scenario where you quickly need to pick up subjects,
and it is all about speed, you might want to find a more medium way...or you want to
even make it very responsive. But then you must be aware that you lose your subject as quickly
as what you found it. If you really struggle with birds in flight
this might be the menu point that you want to play with, in order to improve your focusing abilities.
These were my five favourite Canon camera hacks. I really hope they might help you
with the practical handling of your camera in the field, and taking photographs.
If you did like them, please don't forget to like the video down below, and if you have
camera hacks of your own that I didn't mention here, or questions with regards to
the hacks that I showed you, please leave them in the comment section down below.
I would love to hear your ideas, and come back to you as quickly as possible. Have a great day!