Gerlach Nature Photography Articles

The day before I flew to Japan to photograph the fabulous winter wildlife, my new Canon EOS 1D Mark III arrived. I spent most of the eleven-hour flight across the Pacific studying the camera manual and going through the custom functions-all 57 of them! I love being able to customize the camera to work the way I want it to because I find the default camera settings are largely useless for shooting successful images.

Custom functions offer amazing control over the camera, but they can be difficult to understand what they do and the instruction manual doesn’t give you many clues to why you might want to use each custom function. Let’s go over the custom function choices I find useful. I realize most of you don’t have the Canon 1D Mark III, but nearly all cameras have custom functions today and many of them are similar. To spare you some of the grim details, I won’t cover custom functions that I haven’t found a use for. By the way, several custom functions are useless to me because I rarely use autoexposure modes. I tried autoexposure when I first switched to digital, but found so many serious problems with it that I use manual exposure 99% of the time. I find autoexposure is terribly imprecise. You can make it precise by using the histogram, highlight alert, and exposure compensation control, but then it is much slower and more cumbersome than manual exposure.

Canon has recently changed how they number the custom functions. With earlier Canon models dating back to the film cameras, custom functions were listed as a series of numbers. Now the custom functions are grouped into four categories which include Exposure, Image/Flash Exposure/Display, Autofocus/Drive, and Operation/Others. A great improvement over previous EOS cameras is all of the custom functions can be set directly with the camera, instead of having to use a computer to set the personal functions. Unfortunately, some of the numbers have changed now that the custom functions are put into four groups. For example, mirror lockup had been custom function #12 on most EOS cameras. Now it is CF #15 in group three so the numbers to frequently used custom functions must be learned for the specific camera.

I haven’t found a need for white balance bracketing since I shoot RAW images which are not processed by the camera. I adjust the colors later with the RAW converter in the software I use. I do find it beneficial to use auto exposure bracketing when photographing still subjects to get the best exposure. I manually set the camera to give me the exposure that I think is best first, then an exposure 1/3 stop darker and 1/3 stop lighter. By the way, many people think AEB can only be used with an autoexposure mode. I rarely use any autoexposure mode and commonly use AEB with manual exposure. AEB is effective anytime the ambient light might change a bit and you don’t have time to check the histogram after each exposure.

Choice #1 If you are using aperture priority or shutter priority and the light changes so the selected aperture if using aperture priority or selected shutter speed if using shutter priority cannot be maintained to obtain a standard exposure, the camera will change the selected aperture or selected shutter speed to maintain the standard exposure. For example, suppose you are using shutter priority and select ½50 second. You have told the camera to keep the ½50 second shutter speed. Let’s say the best exposure is ½50 second at f/5.6. You are using a Canon 300mm f/4 lens and the light drops two stops so you really need f/2.8, the camera then lowers the shutter speed to 1/125 second (even though set on shutter priority) so a standard exposure can be maintained. Without safety shift being turned on, the camera couldn’t change the shutter speed, so the images are underexposed in this example. You are most likely to run into this problem when using shutter priority, rather than aperture priority. Do you know why? Most cameras have a range of shutter speeds from 30 seconds to1/2000 second. That covers a 16-stop range. A lens with an aperture range of f/4 to f/32 only covers a 6-stop range so you are more likely to run out of apertures.

If you have been reading my past articles or book on digital nature photography, you know how much Barbara and I like back-button focusing for most of our photography. Back-button focusing (these are words I coined several years ago to describe what it was and it most likely won’t be called that in your manual) solves many problems that occur when the autofocus control is activated by the shutter button. Some of the latest cameras from Nikon and Canon now have an AF-ON button on the back of the camera (that’s why we call it back-button focusing). On the EOS 1D Mark III, the AF-On button is a little left of the AE lock button which I normally used on all of my previous Canon cameras for back-button focusing. On a recent trip to Japan, I shot more than 12,000 images of the fascinating winter wildlife. I found the AF-On button was more difficult to use, especially with gloves on, than the AE lock button. This CF let’s you switch back-button focusing from the AF-On button to the AE lock button!

Here’s how to do it. Go to CF 1-14. Hit the set button which is found in the middle of the quick control dial on the back of the camera. Move the highlighted box to Register and press the set button again. Highlight the first choice that says, With AE lock button (AF on) and press set again. Now make sure Enable is highlighted and press set one more time. You have now switched back-button focusing from the AF-On button to the AE lock button which is easier to operate in my opinion. The AF-On button now becomes the AE lock button. This doesn’t matter to me since I rarely use autoexposure anyway, so I have no use for an AE lock button.

This isn’t a CF that I would use very often, but it would come in handy for doing flash photography in the aperture-priority mode. Choice #0 is the default setting. When using flash in AV mode, the camera tries to balance the natural light in the background with the flash exposure in the foreground. This works well when using a tripod, but often forces the camera to select a rather long shutter speed, so the natural light can light up the background causing unsharp images if hand holding, but reduces the problem of black backgrounds. If you don’t mind a dark or black background and wish to use AV (aperture-priority), then selecting choice #1 locks the flash sync speed at 1/300 second reducing the chance of getting fuzzy images due to the natural light being recorded by the sensor at very slow shutter speeds.

This CF is either on or off. I turn it on when I need to use ISO 400 or higher to reduce the noise that is present when using high ISO speeds. The higher the ISO speed, the more noise that is reduced. A drawback to using this CF though is the maximum burst for continuous shooting is greatly reduced, so you may not want to use it when photographing wildlife action. For example, my burst depth when shooting RAW images drops from 22 to 14 images when this CF is activated, so I don’t use it for flying birds where I need a large burst depth. By the way, the burst depth is the number of images you can shoot before the buffer in the camera fills to capacity. Once the buffer is full, you cannot shoot another image until at least one image in the buffer is written to the storage card.

This CF is either disabled or enabled. If you have a lot of important highlights in the image, you might want to enable it because the dynamic range is expanded between the mid-tones and the highlights, so the tones in this area become smoother. However, if you do enable this CF, your choice of ISOs is reduced to ISO 200 to ISO 3200. You cannot set ISO 100 so I would not use this setting when shooting closeups or landscapes where ISO 100 is usually the best choice for superior image quality.

The default setting is first-curtain synchronization. This means the flash fires as soon as the sensor is fully exposed by the opening shutter curtain. If you use flash to photograph action such as a running dog, it would be wise to set this CF to second curtain-sync, so the natural light portion of the image falls behind the running dog instead of in front of it. Second-curtain sync fires the flash at the very end of the natural light exposure, instead of at the beginning.

You can set one of five levels to assist AF sensitivity for tracking subjects. If you set it to slow as I usually do, the camera is better at tracking a single target and tends to ignore other things that may enter the image. I find this setting helps me track birds in flight and tends to ignore other objects such as the background in the process. Setting the highest level makes it easier to focus on objects that suddenly enter the image. If you photograph a lot of action (such as running football players) that are at all different distances, then a high setting might help you get sharper images.

I got thousands of chances to photograph flying eagles in northern Japan during February of 2008. I tried using continuous autofocus with all the 45 sensors activated, but too often the camera locked on the ice background instead of the eagle. Therefore, I reduced the number of activated autofocus sensors by using option #2 of this CF. This option limits the activated autofocus sensor to the one you select (the middle one for me most of the time) and the adjacent autofocus sensors surrounding the selected one. This made it much easier to stay focused on the bird, not something in the background.

When shooting closeup subjects that aren’t moving or landscapes, I like using mirror lockup to get the very sharpest image. At certain shutter speeds, especially in the 1/8 to 1/30 second range, the motion of the mirror moving out of the way so the light can strike the sensor causes the camera to vibrate a tiny bit reducing image sharpness. By setting the mirror to move before the exposure is taken, no vibration is created by the motion of the mirror. This is an important CF for those who are critical about sharp images and one that I use frequently.

This CF offers three options. Choice #0 disables mirror lockup. Choice #1 enables mirror lockup. Press the shutter button once to lockup the mirror. Press the shutter button one more time to take the image and the mirror goes back down. Since you should use a remote release (such as a cable release) to trip the camera, you have to press the button on the cable release twice to take each image. Another good way and the one I often use is to set the drive to 2-second self-timer. Then gently pushing the shutter button once locks the mirror up. After two seconds count down, the camera takes the image. This technique eliminates having to push the shutter button twice per image and you don’t need to use the remote release either. It is very effective for subjects that don’t move. Of course, if you are trying to catch a flower when it is perfectly still, a remote release is more effective because you can shoot the image as soon as the flower pauses. With the 2-second delay, you have no way to know if the flower will be motionless 2-seconds later or not.

Choice #3 is a new one to me. This selection also enables mirror lockup, but the mirror stays up until you press the set button which lowers the mirror. This choice is an excellent one for using a remote release. The first time you press the release button, the mirror locks in the up position. Once the mirror is locked up, each press of the remote release takes an image. This lets you shoot multiple images without having to keep pressing the button to put the mirror back up. You might want to take multiple images if you are dealing with wind motion and trying to catch the subject when it is perfectly still. You may also want to bracket the exposure, depth of field, or perhaps shutter speed too. When you need to see through the viewfinder again, just press the set button to lower the mirror. This is a nice new option that I find most useful anytime I am using a cable release.

When you are autofocusing, you can press the AF-ON button and (Hold it in) to stop autofocusing. This is useful when you are switching between moving and still subjects. This choice was effective when I was photographing white-tailed and Stellar sea eagles flying around the fishing boat in Japan. When I know I am photographing action such as flying eagles, it is easiest for me to have the continuous autofocus controlled by the shutter button, so I don’t have to hold the back-button focusing button in while also pressing the shutter button to shoot the images. Unfortunately, continuous autofocus is not ideal for an eagle perched on a floating chunk of ice. Here’s the problem. I started out with the activated autofocus sensors on the head of the eagle. When I recomposed, the autofocus sensor might be on the tail, a piece of ice next to it, or the background since the focus continuously changes which is great for action, but not for something that is stationary. By using this choice, I kept continuous AF (AI Servo) on the shutter button for the flying eagles. When I switched to an eagle perched on the ice next to the point, I autofocused on the head of the eagle, held the AF-ON button in, and recomposed. This prevented the camera from refocusing keeping the eagle in sharp focus. This choice is critically important to me!

This choice moves the autofocus control to the AF-On button on the back of the camera. The shutter button no longer initiates autofocusing. However, the shutter button does activate the meter. By holding the AF-On button in, continuous autofocus will track a moving target or focus on a stationary one. Letting the AF-On button up locks the focus. When I wish to do back-button focusing on still objects such as closeups or landscapes, this is the choice I use.

This selection seems similar to choice #2, but it is different in an important way. This selection works well when you want to meter (using an autoexposure mode) and focus on different parts of the scene. Press the AF-On button to meter and autofocus. If you wish to meter an area different from where the subject is, point the camera at the area to be metered and hold the shutter button down half way. This locks the exposure. While still holding the shutter button down half way, recompose the image, press the AF-On button at the same time to autofocus and then press the shutter button down all the way to take the image. It may sound complicated, but you get used to using two buttons at the same time. I have no reason to use this selection because I rarely use autoexposure, so I have no need to lock the exposure. When using manual exposure, the exposure is locked unless I change the aperture, shutter speed, ISO setting, or add any devices such as an extension tube or polarizing filter that cost light, so the exposure changes.

This selection deactivates the AF-On button. If you find you don’t like using it, then choose #4. However, the power of the AF-On button is huge once you get used to using it. It provides enormous control over focusing so you’ll get a high percentage of sharp images, even of birds in flight. Don’t be too quick to think you don’t need to add back-button focusing to your bag of tricks. It is an enormously useful tool!

This is a wonderful CF that makes using back-button focusing so much easier for me. I am used to using the exposure lock button for back-button focusing. I find it is easier to reach and find with gloves than the AF-On button. The CF is enabled by selecting choice #1. It switches the functions of the AF-On button and the exposure lock button. (The exposure lock button is located about ½ inch to the right of the AF-On button.)

This CF lets you change the functions of the main dial (on top of the camera) and the quick control dial. Normally, the main dial adjusts the shutter speed and the quick control dial adjusts the aperture. This is a fine setup most of the time. This CF choice has been on Canon cameras for a while. At first I couldn’t see a need to switch the functions of these dials. However, while photographing hummingbirds with high speed flash, I sometimes accidently move the main dial which changes the shutter speed. Since I was using only flash to light the hummingbirds, I was using the highest sync speed I could which was ½50 second at the time. When I unintentionally moved the main control dial to a higher shutter speed, I got only partial images because the shutter curtains were in the way preventing some of the image from being exposed. I do notice the problem when I review the images on the LCD monitor.

As you may know, the quick control dial can be set to a certain value and then locked with the on/off switch on the back of the camera. By activating this CF, the shutter speed control is moved to the quick control dial and the aperture is on the main dial. Now I can set the sync speed for flash which is 1/300 second with the 1D Mark III and then turn the quick control dial off, so the shutter speed can’t be accidently changed!

This selection deactivates the AF-On button. If you find you don’t like using it, then choose #4. However, the power of the AF-On button is huge once you get used to using it. It provides enormous control over focusing so you’ll get a high percentage of sharp images, even of birds in flight, so don’t be too quick to think you don’t need to add back-button focusing to your bag of tricks. It is an enormously useful tool!

This CF also has some appeal to me when photographing hummingbirds. By activating this CF (choice #1), the main control dial, quick control dial, and multi-controller button are all deactivated. This prevents any settings from being accidently changed. This CF works well anytime you want to do a lot of shooting with the same shutter speed and aperture, as I often do when photographing hummingbirds with multiple flashes.

I sometimes use different focusing screens in the camera. I intend to replace the standard focusing screen in the camera with a grid screen that helps me in composition and keeping horizontal and vertical lines straight. If you change focusing screens, you may need to use this CF to change a setting to maintain proper exposure with the new screen.

Make the Custom Functions Work for You. I realize it will take some time to try all of these custom functions and perhaps some of the others I didn’t mention. Custom functions are enormously useful for helping you shoot faster and more precisely, so you will capture more wonderful images. It really is worth the effort to control the camera and make it work the way you need and want it too, rather than relying on the default settings.