So this is Janine from Pangolin photo Safaris and today I want to speak to you
about custom shooting modes and whether they're useful for wildlife photography.
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So let's get started. I want to talk to you about
whether custom shooting modes are helpful for wildlife photography.
Well my answers it depends. There's no one way or another. But generally I find
the custom shooting modes are too rigid for the versatility that wildlife
photography has to offer for us. We have constant changes in light, in speed and
subject matter and therefore I find that 2 to 3 custom shooting modes just
simply cannot cover the matter that is out there for photography. A lot of the
camera bodies do you have their custom shooting modes on the left-hand side
within their mode dial. So when you're holding a camera like this and you're
having a telephoto lens on them I find it quite cumbersome to take your left hand
away in order to reach that mode dial to change your custom shooting mode.
Most of the time you have to place your camera down, lift it back up, refocus and then
shoot. That takes a tremendous amount of time that we often do not have in
wildlife photography. Therefore it is simply often a time matter.
Some cameras have their custom mode dial or their mode dial on the top
right hand side of their camera it is a lot in a mirrorless camera such as
Olympus or Sony. However the regular adjustment dials
that you find either front or back or top or bottom of your camera have
priority for accessibility. So even for those cameras the mode dial will be
slightly centred to the back.
So unless you can reach it
very very easily and secondly it is not locked via a button it is no more helpful
than with the custom mode dials on the left-hand side. So coming back to your
adjustment buttons which are so easy to read and in right there at your trigger
finger and your thumb. Doesn't matter which brand you choose accessibility is
key and quite frankly if you want to go from a portrait from a 1/1000s
to action shot at 1/3200s it is simply a trigger
finger dial away. It goes so quickly! It goes much quicker than putting your
camera down in order to change your custom shooting mode. So at the end, it
all boils down to how fast can you be? That is wildlife photography for you.
But on the other hand, I also find the custom shooting modes restrict your
creativity in your thinking process. People lean back and they get lazy.
They have an action mode, they have a portrait mode - why think further?
But generally, these custom shooting modes need to be fine adjusted as well.
They can't cover the versatility of scenarios that we find out there. With canon
camera in particular but it might also be with other cameras. If you fine adjust
your custom shooting mode it will reprogram itself back after a certain
time interval to the original setting. So let's say you find adjusted it and
brought it from 1/2500s to 1/4000s
because you want a Kingfisher in flight and now you're waiting for that
Kingfisher to take off and if the Kingfisher takes too long
boom your settings are back at 1/2500s no matter what you did. That is quite
annoying. However, there are reasons for custom shooting modes.
I find them particularly interesting when we come to intentional
slow motion blur. Because now it's not just a quick flick of your
finger now you have to dial let's say from 1/2500s all the
way down to 1/30s and on top of that you probably gonna have to
close your aperture down to block out some additional light and raise your f-stop.
So that is not just a quick glance. That is certainly quite
time-consuming and that's why I find that custom shooting modes can save you
some time in order to pick up quickly when you find the opportunity for let's
say a slow-motion panning shot. In general however I do suggest just get to
know how to change your exposure, your aperture and your shutter with your
normal adjustment DIALS while looking through the viewfinder. That is a fastest
way to get to the settings that you actually want. If you do have a camera
that has custom shooting modes accessible on the right hand side or if
you can maybe reprogram one of the buttons to have it accessible on the
right-hand side please go for it. It makes custom shooting modes so much handier.
It suddenly makes sense and they are a lot more applicable in real-life scenarios.
If you do want to know how to custom set your own camera please check out our other videos for that.
We have quick introductions on how to set your custom shooting modes or you can maybe reprogram them.
I hope you enjoyed this video if you have any questions when custom
shooting modes might make sense or if you simply can't figure out how to do it
with your own cameras leave them below and I'll try and get back to you as soon
as I can. Have a great day!