30D - your biggest tip/hint

[quasi]

Firstly let me say "hello" and then apologise for my newbie-ness.

I have had a good look through quite a few pages of this forum and haven't seen a post quite like this, but if I am doubling up i beg you to see the above apology and go easy on me :)

moving on...

I have just bought myself a spankin' new 30D. And I was wondering, have any of you with a lot of experience with the camera got any hints or tips to share with a newb.
They could be about shooting, about gear, about any limitations you have found...or settings to get around these limitations.

I am hungry for information :D

[JCR]

Hi Quasi,

My humble offering, custom function 4-1

[keheha]

Yes yes... What about cf 4-1??? Could you please elaborate...

(yes - I'm also a complete newbie and I haven't even got the 30D - but I would like to hear about the 30D secrets)

[mmahoney]

Yes yes... What about cf 4-1??? Could you please elaborate...

(yes - I'm also a complete newbie and I haven't even got the 30D - but I would like to hear about the 30D secrets)

Not to be flippant but your best bet is to simply read & absorb the manual .. to answer your question cf4-1 refers to assigning a different function to the * button .. some like to use it to AF with instead of a half press on the shutter button. There is a whole meun of custom functions (cf) in the manual.
Mike

[madferrit]

Look at THIS (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=46965) sticky to find out more about this custom function. Its the only way i use my camera now.

[JCR]

Thanks mmahoney, my fault for not being comprehensive.

Keheha, the idea was to make aware of custom functions especially that particular one.
It's available on your 350D also. The manual is a wonderful invention mate.

[cdifoto]

Spare batteries.

[deprived]

Spare batteries.

on a 30d? are you sure? this is a 30d we're talking about -- unless you're chimping like crazy, the battery lasts forever.

best tip, read the manual, read it again, then read it again, then come back and ask about specifics if you don't understand them:

AEB
AI-Servo vs AI Focus
etc

[Salleke]

on a 30d? are you sure? this is a 30d we're talking about -- unless you're chimping like crazy, the battery lasts forever.

best tip, read the manual, read it again, then read it again, then come back and ask about specifics if you don't understand them:

AEB
AI-Servo vs AI Focus etc

Like CDI says. Get a spare batterie, so if one is empty and you put it in the
charger you can continue shooting with the other.

Good luck.

[hef]

spare battery.. i agree. also, start shooting the heck out of it.

[-MasterChief-]

get the grip!

[picturecrazy]

You're gonna get a million different answers from a million different people. My tip to you is....

just go out, read the manual, use the camera, take a zillion pictures, experiement with different settings (be sure to move into the P Av Tv M modes), then read the manual again. You will come into your own shooting style and you'll find out what works best for you, instead of being told what you should do.

[markubig]

Cfn13-1 (custom function) . . . allows you to use the "joystick" to assign the focus point you want to use. that's what it is on the 20D and I'm pretty sure it's the same on the 30D.

[Curtis N]

C.Fn.1-4 allows use of the [set] button for image replay. This way you can chimp while keeping your left hand on the lens.
C.Fn.8-1 allows use of ISO 3200 (H). Maybe you won't need this often, but there's no reason not to have it available.
C.Fn.13-1 makes it easier to change AF points with the multi-controler. This is more of a personal preference thing, so play around with this and see what you like.
C.N.16-1 turns on the safety shift. This will save your butt from time to time, especially if you try to use flash outdoors in Av mode. There's no downside to using this setting.

Buy the battery grip if a) you have extra money to get rid of, b) you want to build your muscles by carrying extra weight, and c) you want to complicate your options when you decide to buy a flash bracket. A grip won't make your pictures better, but it will make your camera look bigger and more expensive, so you can charge more.

[narlus]

Buy the battery grip if a) you have extra money to get rid of, b) you want to build your muscles by carrying extra weight, and c) you want to complicate your options when you decide to buy a flash bracket. A grip won't make your pictures better, but it will make your camera look bigger and more expensive, so you can charge more.

personally i think the grip has improved some of my photos...i shoot portrait a fair bit, and using the * button for AF meant that sometimes my handgrip on the camera body (w/o the BG) wasn't as secure as it could have been with the battery grip. not to mention the ease of changing AF point and aperture setting.

[aaronpass]

ISO expansion!

[bowlesbe]

I'd love to program my 30d so for every time I press the button, it takes 2 shots, one with max aperture and one at F8.

That would be cool!

[afletch]

Check out Digital Photography in Available Light: Essential Skills, Third Edition (Photography Essential Skills) (http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Photography-Available-Light-Essential/dp/0240520130/ref=cm_taf_text_link?ie=UTF8&tag=tellafriend-20) by Mark Galer.

I found this book to be a great read after absorbing the Canon manual.

Mark Galer does a nice job explaining the concepts that the manual assumes you know.

[Pete]

One thing I'd suggest is to set your flash to sync mode (so it'll set your shutter speed to 1/250 any time you use the flash), it'll save a fair bit of confusion when your flash attempts to work in "fill-in" mode.

Don't forget that upping the ISO will help your low-light exposures, but don't forget to set it back down to 100 the next day.

[bsmotril]

My best tip is to read the manual every couple of months. If you can go through it twice in a row with out having a "Wow, I can use that!" moment, then you fully understand your camera and it's capabilities. After a year, I'm not there yet because every time I read through it again I find something new I can use to my advantage.

[circa]

also, take the lens cap off, that works wonders.

[PZengel]

I've had mine for about two weeks and have read the manual about 4 times.........and I'm still learning things........maybe I'm just a little slow....

[foghorn]

shoot the heck out of it for your first month or two (someone said this above) . Memorize the top three buttons, so you can switch settings faster.

[Broncobear]

C.Fn.1-4 allows use of the [set] button for image replay. This way you can chimp while keeping your left hand on the lens.
C.Fn.8-1 allows use of ISO 3200 (H). Maybe you won't need this often, but there's no reason not to have it available.
C.Fn.13-1 makes it easier to change AF points with the multi-controler. This is more of a personal preference thing, so play around with this and see what you like.
C.N.16-1 turns on the safety shift. This will save your butt from time to time, especially if you try to use flash outdoors in Av mode. There's no downside to using this setting.

Buy the battery grip if a) you have extra money to get rid of, b) you want to build your muscles by carrying extra weight, and c) you want to complicate your options when you decide to buy a flash bracket. A grip won't make your pictures better, but it will make your camera look bigger and more expensive, so you can charge more.

he pretty much summed everything right here for ya!

[tdodd]

My tip - shoot raw and play around with the DPP software to see how picture styles affect the results, experiment with white balance adjustment and exposure adjustment in software. Learn to read your histogram and see what you can fix in DPP and what you need to get right in the first place when taking the shot.

I was terrified to use raw when I first got my 30D because people make out it is some hairy big fanged monster that needs years of experience but in practice it is a doddle to use and gives you the opportunity to fix some mistakes after you've taken the shot, which you simply cannot do to the same degree with jpeg.

I shot a wedding three months after I got my 30D. I left WB on auto and did a pretty poor job on many of the exposures. If I'd shot in jpeg my results would have been terrible - they certainly looked that way when played back on a TV later in the evening. But I shot in raw and was able to salvage nearly all the photos with very little quality loss.

Raw rules! Give it a go :)

[RgB]

Learn your lenses minimum hand held shutter speed :D

[Curtis N]

My tip - shoot raw and play around with the DPP software to see how picture styles affect the results, experiment with white balance adjustment and exposure adjustment in software. Learn to read your histogram and see what you can fix in DPP and what you need to get right in the first place when taking the shot.

I was terrified to use raw when I first got my 30D because people make out it is some hairy big fanged monster that needs years of experience but in practice it is a doddle to use and gives you the opportunity to fix some mistakes after you've taken the shot, which you simply cannot do to the same degree with jpeg.This bears repeating. RAW processing is rather simple compared to many Photoshop tools, and is a great tool for experimenting and learning.

[narlus]

shoot the heck out of it for your first month or two (someone said this above) . Memorize the top three buttons, so you can switch settings faster.

i still can't change metering mode w/o looking @ the top display. i wish there was an indicator in the viewfinder for this.

[Mark_Cohran]

My tip is good for any camera or lens. Learn to hold your camera steady and to shoot with light, even pressure on the shutter button. Tuck your elbows close into your body, cradle the lens with your left hand, let out your breath, then squeeze the shutter until it just goes off. Practice this technique and you'll find your handheld shots will improve in sharpness.

There are lots of other tips on composition, exposure, and general shooting techniques, but they all ultimately boil down to knowing the basics of photography, knowing your camera's controls, and practicing the craft of photography until it's all second nature.

Mark

[quasi]

Thanks so much for all your responses, there are definitely a lot of things i have already taken on board.
Today my lunchtime reading at work consisted of the 1st half of the manual.
I also have a Canon EOS 30D fieldguide book on order at work.

I will let myself get comfortable with the basics and then start to move into the creatives. There is so many options that i cant even start to think about some of them until i understand it completely at the basics level.

I am off outside to shoot :)