Possible to adjust display time?

[12345Michael54321]

Depressing the 300D/Digital Rebel's shutter button halfway, then releasing it, results in (among other things) the shutter speed and aperture being displayed in the viewfinder for a couple of seconds.

Is there some setting I haven't noticed, to extend this time?

Yes, I could just press the shutter button again and again, but if there's a way to set the camera to keep this information illuminated for, say, 10 seconds, that'd be ideal.

[dtrayers]

AFAIK that's the way it is for both the Digital Rebel and the 10D (and I suspect the 20D).


I think you can change it with the 1-series personal functions...

[CyberDyneSystems]

... nope not even on the 1D ... :(

Worse yet.. the 1D series will actually "black out" all the info in the viewfinder when you go to make a change... rather than continue to display the info..

ie: I can set the 1DMkII to disply ISO speed in the viewfinder.. (this is quite helpfull as you can imagine)

BUT.. if I am looking through the veiwfinder and reach with my keft hand to press the buttons required to adjust the ISO.. ALL viewfinder info is instantly switched off INCLUDING the ISO speed.. so now I can not see the adjustment I am making unless i take the camera away from eye and look at the top LCD :(

Bad Canon .. bad bad bad.. :? :wink:

[dtrayers]

CDS,

You can't change the timer in the 1DmkII with PF23? I thought you could change what Canon calls the "6 second timer"?

[CyberDyneSystems]

Hmm.. your most likely right on that one.. I have not tried that personal function. Sorry ,. my mistake.

The manual says simply this:
PFN # 23 "Cahnges the operation timers length"

...Nothing more.. untill now I had no idea what that meant :? :oops:


FYI to those who may not know.. The "Personal Functions" on the 1D's are only adjustable via a software interface with the camera tethered to a PC via firewire.. thus they are a bit tricky to implement on the fly.

On another note: The info black out on the 20D seems to be the fastest - most annoying of any Canon camera I have used.. couple this with the fact that the rear focus bottun * will not wake the camera or cause it to display the info.. only the shutter will do that and anyone who has CFn#4 set to the rear focus button (as any sane photog should) and the 20D becomes a much more quirky camera than the 10D was...

[12345Michael54321]

So, as I expected, it's not a user configurable setting on the 300D or 20D. Can't say that I'm surprised, but it is too bad.

This seems like such an obvious custom function, as well as being one easily explained to the consumer, and one with having more utility to more people than some of the more dubious custom functions Canon has come up with over the years.

I mean, even if it were left out of the 300D because that's the budget model camera and it has to be left less well equipped than the higher end models, you'd think it'd be included in the 20D.

[mjordan]

It sounds like the short duration times were designed to conserve battery useage and is probably part of how they got the battery life extened so much.

Mike

[12345Michael54321]

Sorry, the battery power excuse doesn't cut it with me. Giving the user the ability to select display times of, say, 2 sec., 5 sec., 10 sec. and 20 sec., would (I suspect) be a trivial engineering exercise, and in those situations where maximum battery life proves important, the user could simply opt for the 2 sec. display.

If there are trade offs involving increased display time and battery life, let the user determine for himself where to strike the balance. Just as there are trade offs between ISO speed and image quality, but Canon permits the user to decide for himself how to weigh these factors relative to each other.

[dtrayers]

Two words: Product Differentiation

[daveh]

Giving the user the ability to select display times of, say, 2 sec., 5 sec., 10 sec. and 20 sec., would (I suspect) be a trivial engineering exercise,

Sure, but it's probably competing with 163 other trivial engineering exercises and 21 non-trivial engineering exercises.

Often things like this do get implemented but are overruled for release due to testing, documentation, support and marketing reasons. Sometimes the engineers sneak them in anyway via some hidden menu or button press combination but I can tell you from experience that if you have a good testing team and do code reviews, it can be pretty tricky to get these out the door.