Canon 600d Manual Settings
Bridget Peral
I'm using a Canon 600d with a EFS 18-55mm lens. I'm in the M setting on the dial with the shutter speed at 1/125 and f/5.6 and the phots are coming out really dark even though the room is bright. Please help?
You can't just choose a shutter speed and an aperture. As ebiggs mentions, you need to take a meter reading and then set the camera up appropriately. As Derekp13 mentions, indoors with artificial lighting you will likely need to use a higher ISO.... but just switching to 1600 is sheer guess work. It might work... or not.
Until you get the book, read it and understand it, set the camera to P (program) mode and the camera will select both the shutter speed and the aperture for you, based upon the meter readings it takes. You'll still need to watch for warnings about over or underexposure and adjust the ISO when needed (higher in dim conditions, or lower in bright light).
There are more highly automated modes on the camera, but by using P, Av, and Tv, which are also automatic modes but allow you to give some input to what the camera does, you are taking the first steps toward learning to use the camera in full manual (M) exposure mode.
Actually... I WOULD buy the Bryan Peterson "Understanding Exposure" book... probably one of the most recommended books for those who want to learn to take control of their DSLR and learn to shoot on manual. The Scott Kelby Digital Photography series of books is also commonly recommended (I think that's up to 4 volumes now) -- but I think the Bryan Peterson book is probably more popular. These books use common language and wont confuse you with technical terms with a presumption that you know all the terminology... they teach you the terminology, but the books are designed for those just starting out.
The ultimate goal is to understand how to determine when you have the right exposure... if you can shoot in manual you can shoot in any mode. With that said... I do actually use ALL the modes on my camera -- not just manual. There are reasons the other modes exist.
As for videos... this one should hopefully be a good primer to understand exposure and how you can trade off one part of the exposure setting, but make up for it by balancing out another part of the exposure setting.
BTW, you'll learn about "equivalent exposures" -- but they're not really equivalent. When you trade one setting for another, you get nuances... some exposures are better for freezing action. Some better for creating selective focus (focus only on your intended subject with everything else deliberately blurred). Some are better for landscapes where everything is in focus. Some are better for keeping noise minimized in low light shooting. Some are better for "blurring" moving parts of the shot to imply motion. The list goes on and on -- the point is, picking the right exposure combination is a creative process.
I do NOT normally suggest you crank up the ISO as a way to improve the light becasue the camera will increase the amount of "noise" in the image. The image will start to look grainy. If you shoot JPEG then the camera will attempt to reduce the noise via software smoothing processes... but this has the side effect of softening the image (focus will not look as sharp.)
This is why it's a good idea to read a good book or watch a few good videos to make sure you understand it. It's actually not very hard, but may take some practice to get it to really sink in. I find that even after explaining it to people, they don't "really" get it until they do a few exercises/experiments of their own -- and then the light bulb comes on and you "get it".
I am trying to build up my knowledge in the Manual mode on my camera and I am clearly doing something wrong. I want to use the camer to take a meter reading, but I can't figure out how I am meant to view this. I am in manual mode and I have set the camera to the ISO and aperture that I want to use, and I want the camera to show me its recommendation for shutter speed.
I know this should be a case of hold down the shutter button halfway and look through the viewfinder and see the output there; however, when I am doing this, the screen seems to just show me the settings that I have already chosen on screen, I.E. it doesn't seem to be doing any kind of metering - just confirming the settings I have shown.
If you are in manual mode it will do exactly what you are seeing. That is what Manual mode is. The settings are fixed until you change them. The camera has nothing to do with it. You can use a real hand held light meter. Best choice, or you can watch the meter on the screen in the viewfinder. You must move some control yourself to get it to adjust and indicate when the exposure is correct.
If the indicator (on my 1D Mk IV) is at the bottom, or I believe to the left on a T3i, of the screen, the exposure is under . If at the top, or right for a T3i, it is over. You need to change something until it centers.
I have Canon 600d and Canon 10-18mm f4.5-5.6 wide angle lens. For capturing milky way or sky, I would keep my dslr in manual mode - bulb mode, timer as 30 secs or less to make sure there are no star trails, f5 is minimum at 10mm and ISO between 400 - 1600? What settings should I keep? Also, how many similar images, including subs and flats should I take to get a good image?
Last time I tried something like that I set (I think) 20 second exposure, 10 second wait time and took either 12 or 15 exposures. Iso was set to 400 then I repeated with 800. I think that above 800 then the noise increases as the electronics boost the noise as well as the rest of the bits you want.
Not sure but I think that any darks need to match the DSLR settings for the exposure, so scribble down the settings, and I suggest (likely 120% wrong) that you get about half as many darks as exposures. Put it this way that is what I did.
Darks are easy - lens cap on, set up DSLR and interferometer, press the go button on the interferometer and put the whole lot is something dark until it has it's 6 exposures. They are easy and really help the final result.
My problem with live view on my 550D is that I can't use a radio trigger. It just doesn't fire. The popup flash works, and I'm told that an ETTL Canon flash would work, but either a dumb manual flash or radio trigger doesn't work in live view. But I don't have a problem with the live view display itself.
On my 40D there is a custom function that either adjusts for the settings in M mode to reflect that in the live view, i.e. the preview shows over or under exposure and adjusting exposure is shown in the preview, or just show the composition with an averagely lit scene. There may be something similar on the 600D.
I believe the 60D and 7D have a setting to turn off "Silent Shooting", and doing that is supposed to enable flash in live view. But my 550D has no such setting, and I suspect your 600D doesn't either (i.e. - not a Rebel feature).
What is your aperture setting when in manual mode and live view - are you really stopped down (f/22?). I did search for Live View exposure simulation for the 600D and saw this - do you get this blinking icon?
I'm told an ETTL external flash will work in live view just like the built-in flash does. But I don't have an ETTL flash, so can't confirm that. Perhaps someone here could try that with a Canon flash and let us know.
I suspect your explanation for the dark screen is correct. The camera must be basing it's simulation on the ambient scene and your current exposure settings because it doesn't know what the manual flash will contribute. So the scene shows as very dark. Well, if you find a solution for this, please let us know what it is.
Had this EXACT dilemma with my t4i after using extension tubes for macro photos but I have found a way to solve it. After resetting everything and updating firmware I had no luck. What you need to do is put a canon lens (or any auto aperture lens) on the camera, turn on live view and open the aperture to its lowest stop. Next, turn live view off, but keep the cameras power on. Remove the lens and replace with the manual lens you were having the issue with (mine was a Sigma 14mm 2.8). It should now be showing a correctly exposed live view during manual ISO. Hope this helps anyone with this problem.
Before I get straight to the point, I want to tell a little history behind the question I'm about to ask.
I used Nikon and Olympus film camera for years and I used to be pretty good at using manual controls. Most of my shots with film were exposed pretty well. I rarely had a bad shot unless it was out of focus or had a little motion blur.
When I first got into digital, I bought the Canon EOS 20D. I loved this camera for many years. I used it with the 17-85mm IS USM lens, the 70-200mm f/4 non IS lens, and the nifty fifty f/1.8. Since I got into digital, I started using Aperture and Shutter priority modes more and just selected the ISO and set WB to auto (saved a lot of time from using M mode in my eyes). I would say 95% of all the photos taken with this camera and lenses were perfectly in focus, perfectly exposed, and had perfectly natural colors and contrast. In fact, I rarely needed to use any post processing at all. In fact, I just started using the JPEG output unless I took pics in low light and wanted to PP the high ISO noise out.
Ok, end of introduction. In March 2012, I bought the new 600D with kit lens 18-55IS II. I found the kit lens missed focus a lot, and had too much distortion. It was tack sharp when in focus, but I needed to PP the images to remove all the barrel and pincushion distortions anyways.
Enough about the kit lens... I put it away and never thought of it again. I decided to use my trusty lenses from my 20D. They all worked wonderfully in all the automatic modes... as long as I am outside and in plain daylight. They focused quickly. Exposure and color were great 95% of the time. But indoors or lowlight... I can't get the 600D to get anything correctly, even when using aperture or shutter priority. The white balance seems to always be off a bit and 75% of my photos come out way overexposed.
So, I turned off all special features. No ALO, no high ISO noise reduction, and started using M mode with auto WB and with the picture style set to neutral. As long as the light meter says my photo is going to be 1-2 stops underexposed when I take the shot, the pictures look perfect. If the light meter is at 0, everything is blown out.
Needless to say, since I got the 600D, I must shoot in raw now and have to spend 2-3 hours in PP to fix a normal 100-150 photo shoot. It seems the auto WB is hit or miss from shot to shot under the exact same conditions. I can even take a burst of photos and the color and WB are not consistent across the burst.
I even took a photo of a grey card and did the manual white balance, but still have a slight color shift between photos in the same light during the same shoot. I don't know exactly how to ask this question, but is there something wrong with my 600D? Why can't I get consistent WB and colors under controlled conditions? Why does it always overexpose when I use M, Av, or Tv but not in the preset modes? I got sick of all the PP and exposure compensation and have been just sticking to M mode and trying to make the meter -2 to get the correct shots now.
It is driving me crazy. So crazy in fact, that I have been doing a head to head test between my dusty old 20D and 600D and I see no reason to use the 600D for anything but video. It exposes videos perfectly.
If you look at my photostream, and take note of 20D shots versus 600D shots... just know it took me hours in PP to make the 600D match the color and exposure of the 20D photos which had no PP at all (most 20D shots were in JPEG not RAW since I didn't need to correct anything).
Am I doing something wrong? Is my 600D buggered up? Maybe it needs to be re-calibrated at the factory? I'd like to hear some opinions from people who often use Av and Tv modes most. Like I said, all the automatic modes seems to be fine except in low light.
Originally posted at 9:27AM, 23 August 2012 PDT(permalink)
Andrew - www.The-Digital-Photo.com edited this topic ages ago.