FIGURE 1-10: Here are two guided screens that appear when you use the Tv exposure mode (shutter-priority autoexposure).
Guided mode is fine for users who don’t aspire to master their camera or the ins and outs of photography. But assuming that you bought this book because you don’t fall into that category, Standard mode is a better choice, for several reasons:
❯❯ Although the Guided screens make understanding some options easier, in many cases, they can be just as baffling as the Standard screens. Take a look at the left screen in Figure 1-10, for example. The illustration indicates that you can choose a number at the left end of the scale to blur motion (flowing) and the other to freeze it. But unless you’re already a seasoned Canon user, you might not figure out that the two curved arrows atop the shutter speed setting represent the Main dial, indicating that you rotate that dial to change the setting. Nor is there any indication that the setting involved is named shutter speed.
❯❯ The Guided screens often focus on one particular aspect of a camera setting without explaining how that setting affects other characteristics of your picture. When you change the shutter speed, for example, the camera has to make adjustments to one or two other critical settings, aperture and ISO, in order to properly expose the picture. Those settings, detailed along with shutter speed in Chapter 4, have their own impact on the look of your picture.
❯❯ Standard mode also saves you some steps as you make certain camera adjustments. For example, you don’t have to go to the bother of dismissing the initial menu screen (left side of Figure 1-9) to get to the menu items.
❯❯ When you use the Guided mode, you can’t access the My Menu feature, which enables you to create a custom menu that contains the menu options you use most.
❯❯ Most other Canon dSLRs don’t offer a Guided mode, so if you’re moving to the T7i/D800 from a previous Canon model that used standard displays, using Guided mode requires you to do unnecessary retraining. If you step up to a more advanced Canon model in the future, you also likely won’t have the option to use Guided mode.
For these reasons, figures and instructions from this point forward relate to using the camera in the Standard mode instead of Guided mode. Here’s how to adjust the settings on your camera to swap out the guided screens with the standard versions:
1. Press the Menu button to display the menu screen.
2. Select the Display Level Settings tab, as shown on the left in Figure 1-11.
You can display the tab by tapping it at the top of the screen or by rotating the Main dial until the tab is highlighted.
3. Tap OK or press the Set button.
You see the screen shown on the right in Figure 1-11. Each option turns a separate function of the Guided mode system on or off. By default, all four are turned on, as shown in the figure.
4. Set the Shooting Screen and Menu Display options to Standard.
To change a setting, tap it or use the cross keys to highlight it and then press Set to display the two options available for each setting. Tap Standard or press the up/down cross keys to highlight it. Then tap Set or press the Set button to return to the initial menu screen. The affected screens should now appear as shown in Figure 1-12.
The right screen, which displays shooting information, is labeled Shooting Screen in the menu, but its official name is the Quick Control screen. This screen is the central station for viewfinder photography; see the section “Displaying the Quick Control screen,” later in this chapter, for more information.
5. (Optional) Disable the Mode Guide and Feature Guide options.
The Mode Guide, when enabled, displays a brief description of your chosen exposure mode for a few seconds after you rotate the Mode dial to select that setting. (Refer to the second screen in Figure 1-9.) Similarly, the Feature Guide provides text hints for some options as you select them. (Refer to the second screen in Figure 1-10; the gray text box is a Feature Guide message.)
I leave it up to you whether to disable these features. After you’re familiar with the various exposure modes and camera settings, they simply slow you down, so I keep them off. But if you find them helpful, by all means leave them set to Enable. Just remember that instructions from here on out won’t mention them.
6. Press Menu to exit the menu system.
FIGURE 1-11: Choose the Display Level Settings tab to turn the Guided mode features on or off.
FIGURE 1-12: Here’s how the menu and Quick Control screens appear in Standard mode.
You can return to the Display Level menu at any time to turn the various features on or off as you see fit.
Ordering from Camera Menus
Although you can adjust some settings by using external controls, you access the majority of options via camera menus. The next section provides the basics you need to know to navigate menus and select menu options. Following that, you can find out how to deal with a special category of menu screens, the Custom Functions.
Again, figures from this point forward show menus as they appear in Standard mode. See the preceding section if you need help switching from Guided to Standard menu display.
Here’s how to display menus and adjust the options on those menus:
❯❯ Opening and closing menus: Press the Menu button to display the menus; press again to exit the menu system and return to shooting. You also can just press the shutter button halfway and release it to exit to shooting mode.
❯❯ Understanding menu screens: Which menus and menu screens appear depends on the exposure mode, which you set by rotating the Mode dial on top of the camera. Things also change when you switch from still photography to Movie mode, which you accomplish by moving the On/Off switch to the movie-camera symbol. Figure 1-13 shows a menu screen as it appears for normal photography in the advanced exposure modes (P, Tv, Av, and M).
However, the following menu elements are common to all exposure modes:
● Menu icons: Along the top of the screen, you see icons representing individual menus. In the advanced exposure modes, you get the five menus labeled in Figure 1-13: Shooting, Playback, Setup, Display Level Settings, and My Menu. The My Menu feature, which enables you to build a custom menu, isn’t available in other exposure modes.
● Menu page numbers: Some menus are multi-page affairs. The numbers under the menu icons represent the various