FIGURE 1-26: Avoid touching the gold contacts on the card.
Reviewing Basic Setup Options
Your camera offers scads of options for customizing its performance. Later chapters explain settings related to picture-taking, such as those that affect flash behavior and autofocusing. The rest of this chapter offers a quick rundown of options on the Setup menu, which are mainly (but not all) related to general camera operations. Some of these features deserve only a brief glance; others may require your attention on a regular basis.
Note that menu offerings change depending on your exposure mode — Scene Intelligent Auto, P, Special Scenes (SCN), and so on — and whether the camera is set to Movie mode, Live View mode, or viewfinder photography mode. For now, put the camera in still photo mode (set the Live View/Movie switch to the still camera icon) and exit Live View mode, if it’s active (press the Start/Stop button to turn Live View on and off). Then rotate the Mode dial on top of the camera to the P position, which selects the Programmed Autoexposure mode, one of seven advanced exposure modes. You can adjust all the camera’s options only in these advanced exposure modes.
Setup Menu 1
Display Setup Menu 1, shown in Figure 1-27, to access the following options:
Select Folder: By default, your camera creates an initial filestorage folder named 100Canon and puts as many as 9,999 images in that folder. When you reach image 9999, the camera creates a new folder, named 101Canon, for your next 9,999 images. The camera also creates a new folder if you perform a manual filenumbering reset.FIGURE 1-27: Setup Menu 1 contains the Format Card option with a handful of others.Choose Select Folder to see the list of folders on your memory card. If the card contains multiple folders, the currently selected one is highlighted. The number to the right of the folder name shows you how many pictures are in the folder. You also see a thumbnail view of the first and last pictures in the folder, along with the file numbers of those two photos. To choose a different folder, tap it or use the up/down Quick Control keys or dial to select it and then press the Set button. You also can create a new folder by choosing the Create Folder setting; Chapter 11 provides details on this feature.
File Numbering: This option controls how the camera names your picture files. After selecting File Numbering from the menu, choose the Numbering option to select one of these choices:Continuous: This is the default; the camera numbers your files sequentially, from 0001 to 9999, and places all images in the same folder (100Canon, by default) unless you specify otherwise using the Select Folder option. The numbering sequence is retained even if you change memory cards.When you reach picture 9999, the camera automatically creates a new folder (101Canon, by default) and restarts the file numbering at 0001 — again, the folder issue being dependent on the status of the Select Folder option.Auto Reset: File numbering restarts at 0001 each time you put in a different memory card or create a new folder. It’s easy to wind up with multiple photos that have the same file number if you’re not careful about storing them in separate folders. So think twice — or maybe three times — about using this option. You also find a separate option, Manual Reset. Select this setting to begin a new numbering sequence, starting at 0001. A new folder is automatically created to store your new files. The camera then returns to whichever Numbering mode is selected (Continuous or Auto Reset).Beware of one gotcha that applies to both the Continuous and Auto Reset options: If you swap memory cards and the new card already contains images, the camera may pick up numbering from the last image on the new card, which throws a monkey wrench into things. To avoid this problem, format the new card before putting it into the camera, as explained later in this list.
Auto Rotate: This option determines whether vertically oriented pictures are rotated to appear upright during picture playback or when you view them in a photo editor. Stick with the default setting, shown in Figure 1-29 until you explore Chapter 9, which discusses this and other playback issues.
Format Card: Choose this option to wipe the installed memory card clean of all contents and ensure that it’s properly prepared for use in the camera. For extra deep cleaning, select the Low-Level formatting box after you select the menu option. However, the standard formatting (Low-Level box unchecked) is usually adequate.
Setup Menu 2
Setup Menu 2, posing in Figure 1-28, contains these options:
Auto Power Off: To save battery power, the camera automatically goes to sleep after a certain period of inactivity. At the default setting, the camera nods off after only ten seconds unless the camera is in Playback mode, Live View mode, or Movie mode, in which case it waits until 30 seconds have passed.You can adjust this timing so that 30 seconds is the minimum delay time (the 10-second variation is disabled at the 30-second setting). Or you can extend the delay up to as long as 15 minutes. To disable auto shutdown altogether, select Off — but be aware that even at that setting, the monitor still turns off if you ignore the camera for 30 minutes.Regardless of the shutoff time you select, you can bring the camera out of hibernation mode by giving the shutter button a quick half-press and release or pressing the Menu, Info, Playback, or Live View button.FIGURE 1-28: Through the first option on this menu, you can adjust the delay time of the camera’s automatic shutdown feature.
Display Brightness: This option enables you to make the camera monitor brighter or darker. But if you take this step, what you see on the display may not be an accurate rendition of exposure. The default setting is 4, which is the position at the midpoint of the brightness scale.
Screen Off/On button: This option controls whether the back camera screen turns off when you press the Shutter button halfway during viewfinder shooting. The default behavior is for it to replain on, but you can select Shutter button to turn the screen off when you press the Shutter button halfway. The sceen turns back on when you release the button.
Date/Time/Zone: If you didn’t do so when following the initial camera setup steps at the start of this chapter, enter the time, date, and time zone now. Keeping the date/time accurate is important because that information is recorded as part of the image file. In your photo browser, you can then see when you shot an image and, equally handy, search for images by the date they were taken. Chapter 9 shows you where to locate the date/time data when browsing your picture files. When the Time Zone setting is active, the Time Difference value that’s displayed is the difference between the time zone you select and Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, which is the standard by which the world sets its clocks. For example, New York City is five hours behind UTC. This information is provided so that if your time zone isn’t in the list of available options, you can select one that shares the same relationship to the UTC.
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