Over the last couple of months, I have had a lot of people ask me about my setup for the new Canon R1 and Canon R5 Mark II cameras. Specifically they are asking about what I change on my menus and how I set up my focus buttons.
In this blog post, I want to share with you all my recommended menu changes for both cameras. Whether you are setting up the camera for the first time or maybe looking to make some tweaks to a camera you already have been using, I hope this helps.
I am going to take you through a bunch of menus to help you make the changes and explain why I suggest these settings. I should also mention that these are my recommended settings that I feel are best for almost all photographers. That does not mean that these are perfect for everyone, but they work great for me. Consider this my holiday gift to you all. 😀
The Red Menu
* Image Quality - I always set my camera to shoot in RAW mode and turn off JPEG. I do this because RAW give me the best quality images and I don't need JPEGs. If I do need JPEG images, I can easily convert my RAW files on my computer. Also, you may not know this, but when capturing both RAW and JPEG images, it really slows down your camera buffer clear.
* ISO Speed Settings - I like to set the lowest ISO of the camera's ISO Speed Range to L (which is ISO 50). This is handy when I am shooting waterfalls or daytime shots when I am trying to kill the shutter speed to get motion in my images. It is rarely used, but an easy tweak to set this up for those instances where it is desired.
* Color Space - I change sRGB to Adobe RGB in the rare case that I do shoot JPEGs. I like this color space better.
* Drive mode - I always default this to a slow burst mode. I NEVER shoot in the single shot mode. Regardless of what I am photographing, I want to take a short burst photos of each person or scene. I will turn this up to a faster burst rate when I am photographing sports or wildlife.
* Shutter mode - I usually take photos in Elec. 1st-curtain mode since this works best for most captures, including when I am using a flash on camera. Even though full Electronic shutter is nice for some conditions, I find it restrictive for flash photography and long exposures.
* Release shutter without card - Turn this OFF. I really hate that Canon defaults this to on, since it means that people can use the camera without a memory card in the slots. Why would you ever want that?!
The Purple Menu (Auto Focus)
* AF operation - I set this for Servo focus since I almost always want the camera to track the focus on my subjects whether they are moving fast or not.
* Subject to detect - I leave this on People unless I am traveling to Costa Rica, Africa or other locations where animals are the main subjects.
The Blue Menu (Playback)
The Yellow Menu (Tools)
The Green Menu (Tools) - And this is an IMPORTANT ONE!!
* Customize buttons for shooting - I change numerous items in this menu to get the camera working the way I want it. Even though back button focus is less imperative than it used to be, I still prefer it, so I change the following things:
The "other" Green Menu (My Menu)
This screen is rarely used by hobbyists but widely used by professional photographers. With that said, I think that it should be used by everybody! This menu lets you put your most used menus on one screen. I have mine set for these:
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