Currently I am concentrating on video production which is a major project because so much of it is post production by it’s very nature. However that said in tandem I am working on the material for a book and allied to that continuing developing my rediscovered drawing ability.
On top of that I’m grappling with a major change in design approach to doing WordPress websites of which this is an example. The problem with this is that it is radically different from what went before but they have been introducing the new toolset over a period of releases the earlier ones of which were pretty dire and very poorly explained which is I’m afraid the norm with most computer software.
A Really Useful Tool
One of the things I have used for many years on my Canon cameras is what are called ‘Custom Settings’ which as in the header picture above, are marked on the mode dial same as the usual P, Av, Tv, M but as C1 and C2 in this example. The beauty of this is that you can preset your settings in terms of shutter speed, aperture and ISO and switch to these by a click of the mode dial.
The reason that I used these a lot was for wildlife. Most of the DSLRs I’ve used have 3 custom settings so I would set them up for wildlife with mainly 3 different shutter speed settings – 500, 1,000 and 2,000 so that I could pick which one according to the light and conditions on that day. With practice in getting your settings right for your usual environment you could be instantly ready and miss fewer opportunities.
For Video ?
One of the things I am playing with when shooting video is using flat picture profiles because it gives you more latitude colour grading your footage in post production. Changing colour profiles is a bit of a pain that requires diving into the menu system because at this time I go out with my camera set for stills and then want to switch to video settings if I see something interesting.
Yes I know, I’m not the sharpest tool in the box but the other day I thought “I wonder…” Sure enough when I played around with it, I found that I could set up a custom button to bundle exposure and picture style in one. Works a treat on the 1DX and the M6 but is a bit more cludgy on the Lumix G90 so I will have to play with that a bit more. It is often the case when you switch brands that the function is there but you might need to optimize via a different route.
