Hi guys! I hope you're doing great wherever you are in this world...and as promised, in today's
video I am going to show you how I have set up my Canon 5D Mark IV for wildlife photography.
I will take you through each menu tab, and show you my preferred settings - with explanations to each of them.
But, before I do that...if you haven't already, please make sure to subscribe to our channel and
enable all notifications, so that you don't miss out on new exciting content posted here every week!
I have extensively used this camera for about a year now, going out on safari almost every day,
and the settings I provide you with are based on my experience I have with this camera out
in the field. I hope this will give you a good starting point too. To make it easier, I have reset
all the settings back to default, so that you can easily follow along as to how I set it up.
Let's first have a look at the quick (Q) menu. Now as you can see, my camera is set to manual mode,
and the ISO is set to AUTO. If you would like to know why I think this is a very good shooting mode
for wildlife photography, please check out the link on the top. I am going to set the autofocus mode to
AI SERVO, which is for tracking moving subjects...and then the frame advance, I am going to put to
'high speed continuous', because I don't want to miss out on any action.
For the light metering mode, I am happy with the default light meter which is 'evaluative'.
If you want more explanation about light metering modes, there is another link right on top...on a video I have
made specifically on that topic. I am a raw shooter, so I am going to change the default from large jpeg,
to raw files. That gives me much more flexibility in post-processing. White balance is luckily one
thing you do not need to worry about when shooting in raw, however I still have the preference to set it
instead of automatic white balance - to daylight - just because i feel it gives me a more constant
white balance through a series of shots, which makes the correction in post-processing just
so much easier. That's all that i wanted to mention for the quick menu...let's head over to
the main menu. Shooting menu one. Image quality - we have already set up in the quick menu.
So, let's have a look at 'Dual Pixel RAW'. This is a new feature that Canon introduced in the 5D Mark IV.
I can't really say that I can give an educated opinion about this feature as I haven't used it yet,
and I don't think I am intending to...as if you enable it, the file sizes are almost doubling
up from what your normal files are already...and for me, as a wildlife photographer, taking so many
shots each day - on high speed continuous - I just don't want to sit with these large files.
Essentially what the function is capable of doing, is a little micro fine adjustment of the pixels
for optimized sharpness. So, you might want to try it out. I keep it disabled.
'Image review' I leave at two seconds. That is sufficient enough for me, and I don't want to make it any longer,
because it takes up quite a bit of battery. If you don't need it at all, you can of course switch
it off completely. I am definitely going to go ahead and disable the beep. Super annoying, especially if
you shoot wildlife, you don't want your camera beeping around every time it's achieved focus...
and it is anyway only applicable if you do shoot in one shot - if you in AI SERVO where there is no beep.
I prefer to have it disabled for those moments where I might switch to one shot for some reason.
Release shutter without card. Very important and I am not quite sure why Canon, or any camera, would
give you an option to release the shutter without a card in your camera.
Please make sure you disable this. Set it to OFF, which means that if you don't have a card in your camera,
you cannot take an image...and you will realize immediately. Oh. I forget my card, and you can pop it in.
Very important - you don't want to be sitting later, having shot all these amazing images,
but you don't have any, because you didn't have a card inside. Next up is lens aberration correction.
I disable all the corrections. You will see that I have set them all to OFF, and that is because
I am shooting in RAW. These corrections are only applicable if you are a jpeg shooter,
then you would leave them on, because they will correct things like vignetting distortion,
and chromatic aberration. If you shoot in RAW, however, you can switch these off
and save a little battery power. Now in shooting menu 2, we have something called 'ISO speed settings'.
As mentioned before, I shoot in Manual with Auto ISO, and here I can now set the upper limit
for the Auto ISO range. For me personally, with the 5D Mark IV, I am happy to push it up to about
12800. If I am close enough to the subject, I feel that that still produces pretty good results, and
wildlife often happens after sunset, or before sunrise...so, it can be quite dark and I don't want to miss
the shot. The 'Auto Lighting Optimizer' I am also going to leave off, because I am not shooting
jpeg, and in RAW it doesn't make a difference. The last setting I am going to change in
the shooting menu 2 is the color space. By default, it is set to SRGB. I am going to go to Adobe RGB.
Although, shooting in RAW, this once again doesn't really matter at all ,
because your RAW files won't be affected by the chosen color space. However, in the back of
your camera, the image that is previewed to you, on your LCD screen, is essentially a jpeg file.
So, using Adobe RGB just gives you a slightly more accurate histogram, so you can determine
the correct exposure. That's all that i'm going to change in the red shooting mode. The other tabs...4, 5 and 6,
I leave at default. These are merely live view settings. Mainly used if you do videography.
It doesn't really affect your images, so I just leave them at the default setting. Now the Canon 5D Mark IV has a
very complex, and sophisticated, autofocus system, that can be fine-tuned for any situation.
In the pink menu - in the autofocus menu - you can see there is different cases, for different situations,
where you can fine tune that autofocus. Now I am not going to go too much into detail now,
about what each function means. I have a separate video on that, which you will find in the link on the top.
I am just going show you the set-up that I use most of the time. I typically have my tracking
sensitivity on -1. Accelerating decelerating tracking on 0, and AF Auto point switching on 0 as well.
Moving on to the second tab in the auto focus menu, we have AI Servo first image priority,
and AI Servo second image priority. Also, I have an elaborate description about these in the
video that I just referred to. I typically set my first image priority to 'Release priority',
and my second image priority is set to 'Equal priority'. Tab number three in the autofocus mode,
is only for people that shoot in One Shot AF, which I don't. I shoot in AI Servo, so I am going to
leave all the settings at default. In tab number four, we have something called 'Lens drive whenAF impossible'.
This means that if your camera can't achieve focus...it can either stop searching
for focus, or it can continue. I like to have to set to ON, which means that it continues looking for
focus, because of course I want to get focus on my subject. With 'Selectable AF point', I make sure
to have all 61 autofocus points enabled, because I want to be able to switch between
all autofocus points possible. 'Select AF area selection mode' is there to disable, if you want to.
Focus points that you don't tend to use, which makes rotating through the different focus
options, a little bit quicker. So, I am going to uncheck the ones that I don't tend to use,
and then hit OK. In 'Orientation linked AF point', you can if you want to, separate the position of your
autofocus point, in a vertical versus a horizontal position. However, for wildlife, I found it is best
to keep it the same for both, as wildlife is kind of hard to predict, and changes around all the time.
The initial autofocus point I am going to leave at the default setting, which is automatic.
But, I am going to change the Auto AF point selection, and I am going to disable the tracking, since I
mostly shoot on a single focus point. For the 'AF point selection movement', I like to have
mine set to 'Stop at the AF area edges', to prevent it from accidentally jumping over to the other side...
and the 'AF point display during focus', I choose to have only my selected focus points constantly displayed.
The 'VF display illumination' I am happy to leave on AUTO, and the
'AF status in the viewfinder' actually changed to show outside the view. I prefer to have my
viewfinder as uncluttered, and empty, as I can. Looking at the playback menu, which is the
blue one, I haven't changed much here, but I found that there are three things that really helped me as a
photographer, and maybe is useful for you too. So, if I look at the second tab on the bottom,
we have something called image jump...and if you go in there, you can now tell your camera - every time you
scroll the top wheel, while you're in review - how many pictures it should advance at a time.
So, I have mine set to 10, which makes it very easy to scroll quickly between images, and find something.
I can still use the bottom wheel to advance, one at a time further, if I want to. Another handy feature
in the playback menu is the 'Highlight alert' - right on the top in the third tab - which I have enabled
on my camera as well. This is a personal preference, but I really like to see the over-exposed
parts in my image...to have better exposure control. Also, in the third tab, we have magnification,
and that comes in really handy if you want to zoom in on your picture, and see if it is
really sharp. So, normally if you press your little loop icon, you would zoom in very slowly,
and you have to press it multiple times to come to the actual size. However, in the magnification,
the camera gives you the option to actually set it to the actual size, which is my preferred setting...
and then if you press the loop, you straight away go in to the actual size, which makes it super fast
to check if your image is really in focus. In the yellow setup menu of the camera, I have only changed
one thing. But I think it is a very important one. So, if we look at the first step, there is
something called 'Record function + card folder selection', and I have mine set to 'Auto switch card'.
Now, there is nothing more annoying than being at an action sighting, and you shoot...all of a sudden
your card is full, and your camera tells you that your card is full...and you manually have to switch
to activate your second card slot. With Auto switch card, your camera will automatically
start recording onto the second card, once the first one is full. So, please make sure that you
switch that on. Now the orange menu on the 5D Mark IV has probably the most important feature for me.
That is the custom controls in the third tab, on the bottom. Here I can now customize the buttons
on my camera to suit my shooting needs. Let's start off with the shutter button. I like to shoot with
back button focus. If you would like to know why we like back button focus in wildlife photography,
there is a great video featuring my colleague, Janine. The link is right on the top.
So, to disable my shutter button for focusing, I go into the function and I am going to select
'Metering start' instead of 'Autofocus and metering start. Next up, I need to set up my back button
for focusing, so I am going to go into the AF-ON button and select 'Metering and AF start'.
Then, I do like to have a second back button focus set-up, which is the star button right next
to my AF-ON button...which means I can simply swipe my finger - just over to the other side -
so I am going to set that to 'Metering and AF start'...and by pressing info, I can now give this button
a different autofocus point characteristic, So, if I go down to AF area selection mode,
I am going to choose the single focus point with the four level helpers. So that means that my AF-ON
button now focuses with a single focus point, and swiping over to the star button, I can now focus
instantly with the single focus point, and the four helpers. Very handy! Next up is my 'Set button', which
I use for exposure compensation. So, simply by holding down the set button - and simultaneously
rotating the wheel on the top of my camera left or right - I can now adjust the exposure of my camera.
A personal preference is...that I like my shutter speed setting to be changed with the top wheel
on the camera. So, I am going to set that to 'Tv', and then the bottom wheel I like to have set up to
change the aperture. The multi-controller - I am going to leave at OFF - since I have my AF area
selection button on the back of the camera. I am going to set that to 'Direct AF area selection',
which means I can very quickly toggle between different autofocus modes...
just by pressing this button. This is my set-up of the Canon 5D Mark IV for wildlife photography.
I hope you found this video helpful. If you did, please give us a thumbs up!!
...and once again, please remember that these are the settings that work for me. If you
have any other suggestions, tips or tricks, I would really appreciate it if you can please leave them in the comments down below.
Thank you very much for watching! Enjoy experimenting with your camera, and see you soon...