Monday, December 23, 2024

The best settings for your Canon R5 Mark II and Canon R1 cameras


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)

* Highlight alert - I definitely enable this since I want to get a visual representation of over-exposed areas in my photos. I use this as opposed to the histogram (which I never use).

The Yellow Menu (Tools)

* Record func+card/folder set - I set the second line which is the Camera records options to Rec. to multiple so that I am writing the same RAW files to both memory cards in my camera. I worked in the memory card business for more than 10 years and know how finicky they can be. Even though I use the best cards on the market (ProGrade Digital), I still always write my images to both cards.

* Play - I set this to card 1 and I also check mark the Info Priority box so that it stays on card 1.

* Record/play - I set this to card 1 and I also check mark the Info Priority box so that it stays on card 1.

* Auto rotate - I change this to the middle option which is the "On (computer icon)" so that the images will be rotated correctly on my computer but show full screen on my camera LCD. 






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:

1. Shutter button to "Metering start" so that the focus mode is determined by the back buttons only.
2. AF-On button to eye detection (and with eye control on when setting the Canon R1)
3. AE Lock button to "Metering and AF start" and I change the Detail settings to "AF operation to Servo", Whole area tracking "Off", Subject to detect "Off", Spot detection "Off", Eye detection "Off" 

When setting all these, this will give you face detection on the AF-On button and a single focus point (servo) on the AE Lock button. I use this ALL the time. If I have a person or animal in front of me, most of the time the face and eye detection works great, but for the times when it is not locking on or I don't have a person or animal in front of me, I use the AE Lock button to establish my focal point.

Customize dials/control ring - I change this so that the Main dial is AV, the second dial is ISO and the back dial is TV. I leave the Control ring for exposure compensation, but rarely use the control ring.

* Eye control - I turn this on and train it. I also turn the Pointer display settings to Off since I find it really distracting having the pointer moving all over the display when I am shooting. 




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:

* Image type/size
* Subject to detect
* Highlight alert
* Record func+card/folder
* Format card
* Eye control on/off


Regardless of whether you are using the Canon R1 or the Canon R5 Mark II, I hope that this helps all of you to get better control of your camera and take even better photos. They are both amazing camera and the settings really do matter.

Happy holidays to you all!


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