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Top Of Camera Buttons

Lesson 9 from: Canon EOS M5 and M6 Fast Start

John Greengo

Top Of Camera Buttons

Lesson 9 from: Canon EOS M5 and M6 Fast Start

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

9. Top Of Camera Buttons

Next Lesson: Viewfinder Display

Lesson Info

Top Of Camera Buttons

Over on the right hand side of the camera is the Exposure Compensation Dial, and this is a very simple way for you to make your pictures a little bit brighter, or little bit darker when you're in any of the automated modes. And so you can simply turn the dial to get the appropriate brightness, whether you want it brighter or darker. These are gonna be most useful with the Program mode, the Time Value mode, and the Aperture Value mode. I think you'll find, and I'll just do a little quick test here, I just wanna confirm this. I'm gonna put it in the A+ mode and I'm pretty sure that this dial doesn't even work. Yup, does not even work in the A+ mode. As I said, when you're in the A+ mode, that simplified auto mode, there's a lot of child safety locks and that's one of the buttons that has a child safely lock on it. And do be careful about having that set accidentally, because if you do accidentally bump it and then go into the Program mode, all of your pictures are gonna be a little bit b...

righter or a little bit darker depending on where you bumped it. Now there is another way of doing the same type of effect, but automatically, shooting a series of photos across a range of brightnesses, and it's called Auto Exposure Bracketing. It's something we'll talk more about when we get into the menu system. The M Function button on the camera is a Multi-Function button that allows you to control something, almost anything, not anything, but almost anything with this one button. So this is something that we're gonna see when we dive into the menu system. Under custom functions, you can choose that button to be a bonus feature that you wanna go in and program. So we'll take a look at this when we get into the menu system. And so if there's one feature in the camera that you come back to on a regular basis that you want to adjust, that's kind of your one bonus button, you might say, for quick access so that you don't have to dive into the menu system to make that change. All right, so this is on the M5 only, this is the Dial Function button, and this is actually a new button that I have not seen on any other Canon camera previously. And it's a little unusual, I'm gonna give you a little demo on how it works on this. So we have a button on the top of the camera, and we can cycle through the different options, and right now I have the camera kind of reset to factory settings, so that it's not too many options on here. But you'll see, let's see, I gotta get it out of the A+ mode, too many child safety locks. I'm putting it into Program mode. All right, so when I press down on this button, you'll see that it flips between white balance and ISO. So if it's in the ISO, I can then turn this dial and change my ISO. Now after I think four seconds. Three, two, one, it'll disappear. I press the button again, it's on white balance, and I can change the white balance now to these different options, we'll talk specifically about white balance here in a moment. Basically the color that you're getting. And four, three, two, one. Disappear. Press the button again. It's in white balance, and so if I wanna change the ISO, I gotta press it here, and now I can change the ISO with the back button. And so you can't ... I guess the one thing that's kind of frustrating to me is I can't leave it on ISO. When I press the button again, it goes back to white balance. And so then I press it again to go to the ISO. Now the thing is, is that you can add more features into the dial functions so that there's not just white balance and ISO, there could be several other things in there. And so if you added your favorite feature to the Multi-Functions button on the top, you can choose a list of the other features that you go to and put them in here into the Dial Function so that you can access those more quickly than diving into the menu system. And so it's kind of the next level down for your favorite features. So it's a good way of having quick access to those features that you do use on a regular basis. You'll be able to customize those by going into the Custom Function menu, under number two, called Dial Functions, and we'll take a closer look at that in the second half of the class, when we're going through the menu system. The Flash Up button will put the flash upwards, ready to fire. Normally, it's not gonna go up, the Flash Up button is in a slightly different place on the M6. And let's talk about flash photography here for a moment. The built-in flash is helpful in situations that your subject is quite close to you, but it's not very powerful. Canon makes a variety of other flashes that are gonna have more power. And so if you do use flash on a regular basis, if you have subjects that are a little bit further away, or you have large groups of subjects, large group of people, the Speedlite 320 is kind of interesting because it has a video hot light. So if you want to shoot video, it's got an extra little kicker light for that. If you did do a lot of flash photography, probably the flash I'd recommend the most is the 430EX III-RT. This is a good intermediate level flash. The professionals have the high-end 600EX-RT II, with radio triggering. And on any of these flashes, or the built-in flash, the maximum shutter speed is gonna be 1/200th of a second. So be aware if you're trying to set shutter speeds, you will be limited to that. Now on the hot shoe for the M you can get the EVF-DC2 electronic view finder. This sells for little over $200 dollars, and for somebody who has the M and suddenly decides they want an EVF, or somebody who just occasionally wants an EVF, and the rest of the time they want a more compact camera, it is a nice little option. It's a pretty good quality view finder as well, in my opinion. There's a number of additional flash controls that you can get to in the menu system. We'll be talking about more of those as we go through the menu system, so be aware that we'll have that on page five in the shooting menu as we go through things. There's a little, couple of holes for the speaker, so when you're playing back movies and you're listening to the sound. That's where the sound is coming from, and like all cameras, they give you a little indication as to where the focal plane is. If you ever needed to measure the distance from your subject to the sensor, which is something very rarely does anyone ever need to do, they always put a mark on the camera to let you know where the sensor is in the camera, as to how deep it is in from the lens mount.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Canon EOS M5 and M6 Recommended Settings

Ratings and Reviews

Susan Clarke
 

John did an outstanding job explaining every part of this camera. As a newbie, this course is exactly what I needed to understand this camera. Thank you, John. Now, I'm going back to watch through 1 more time!

Michael Simpson
 

John Greengo is probably the best instructor I have come across in my short photography journey. I learned a lot about the camera, something that would have been difficult without the help of the M5 course. Thank you.

a Creativelive Student
 

Once again, a thorough explanation about all the functions of the Canon EM5/6 Camera operations. For anyone considering purchasing this class before getting your hands on the actual camera, it will give you a head start into the functions of the camera you chose. As a Canon FF User, I wanted to have a camera for urban shooting, yet, wanted something that could use all my Canon Lenses with an adapter. The Canon M5, I believe is a great choice and I'm looking forward to seeing how my lenses work with it.

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