Canon 5D MK III, Going From Manual To AV

[steve_c]

Hi all

Following my thread here, after a member saying that shooting in manual was a strange way of doing things (over Av for street shots etc), I decided to go and give it a try.

As I said in the original thread, I am very new to photography and picking things up as I go.

I am a little confused as to what the process of shooting in Av is.

Originally, when shooting in manual, I would take the following approach (for street or portrait work):

1) Establish WB and ISO needed for scene
2) Dial in desired apperture and guess at shutter speed
3) Centre the viewfinder on subject and dial back / forward SS to expose correctly
4) Half-press the shutter button to focus
5) Recompose
6) Shoot

I am now trying to shoot in Av:

1) Establish WB and ISO needed for scene
2) Dial in desired apperture
3) Centre the viewfinder and half-press the shutter to focus
4) Recompose

When I recompose, the light meter re-calibrates to whatever is in the centre of the viewfinder and usually my subject will be incorrectly exposed.

I am certain that this is a ridiculous question (I re-iterate that I am beginner) but what am I doing wrong?

Do I lock in exposure first and then focus / recompose?

Thanks in advance as usual...

 

[Raymond Lin]

1 - Put in Av
2 - Dial in desire aperture
3 - Select focus point
4 - Shoot

I do not focus and recompose, those are back in the days where a lot of cameras' only decent focus point is the centre one or they just have 1 centre focus point.

repeat point 3 & 4 most of the time, some times you may need to change ISO or rarely the WB but just 3 & 4.

 

[steve_c]

Hi Raymond

Thanks for the reply.

I am still a little confused.

The metering is taken from the centre is it not?

If my subject is to the right of the frame and I use the focus point in that area, am I knot still metering for the centre of the frame?

Thanks again

 

[GTRacer]

As above, two more things though: use back button AF if you don't already do so, and set up the camera so that half pressing the shutter button locks the exposure only. That way you separate focus and exposure so it's a bit like shooting manual except the camera does the number crunching/dial spinning for you. That way your process ends up looking like this:

1 - Point at subject, Av decides the exposure
2 - Half press shutter to lock the exposure
3 - Select AF point
4 - Press AF ON button so the camera focuses
5 - Fully press the shutter, take photo

 

[steve_c]

As above, two more things though: use back button AF if you don't already do so, and set up the camera so that half pressing the shutter button locks the exposure only. That way you separate focus and exposure so it's a bit like shooting manual except the camera does the number crunching/dial spinning for you. That way your process ends up looking like this:

1 - Point at subject, Av decides the exposure
2 - Half press shutter to lock the exposure
3 - Select AF point
4 - Press AF ON button so the camera focuses
5 - Fully press the shutter, take photo

Hi

Thanks very much

So that is starting to make sense. I have heard about swapping these buttons over on another forum.

So I can use the cursor to move focus to a different point so that I do not have to recompose? Recomposing always seemed to be a quicker option rather than changing focus points...

 

[D.P.]

ISO should be the last exposure modification to make (if you make it at all)

1) Simply select the aperture you want for the scene to give the depth of focus you want, e.g. eye in focus only, whole head in focus, couple in focus, whole scene in focus, foreground-to back ground in focus.
1) b) Occasional you ant to override the auto exposure little using exposure compensation for strongly back lit scenes or if you want to force black shadows in a silhouette - a little EC change if needed
1) b) ii) make sure you are using the appropriate metering mode and have it tuned to your desire.

2) Double check shutter speed is fast enough for the focal length and movement, if not
up the ISO.

2) b) Learn to use auto ISO, there is not much point in changing the ISO reach the desired shutter speed manually. Some cameras don't handle different shutter speeds for different focal lengths but the newer models often allow you to set up rules, e.g. 1/30th at 24mm and 1/100th at 70mm etc.


Don't focus and recompose, choose the focus point closest to the subject- you can experience horrible focus issues at shallow DoF. Fast lenses typically have strong field curvature so focus will be drastically different from the center to edge. Acquire a rough focus first before exposing because in all exposure modes the focus point has influence, even in matrix mode. Once exposure is set confirm focus.


Rarely a need to ever touch WB, specially not in a dynamic scene. just leave it on auto. The only time it makes sense is when shooting things like landscapes on a tripod and you are using ETTR (exposing to the right). When you review histograms to check exposure the histograms are based on the embedded jpeg, so colour and contrast will affect the RGB histograms and make it harder to find colour channel clipping points. Shooting street you should never care about WB really.

Al of this should be natural and very fast. If you setup auto ISO correctly then you are left with selecting an aperture and focus point. The aperture choice is normally trivial, just don't go too wide when you need things like a wedding couple to both be on focus when the are not parallel to you. a lot of the time you wont even have to bother changing the aperture.

Your work is now reduced to getting a good composition of a good moment, not fiddling with meaningless settings that can be done better by the camera than you in most situations.

 

[D.P.]

Hi Raymond

Thanks for the reply.

I am still a little confused.

The metering is taken from the centre is it not?

If my subject is to the right of the frame and I use the focus point in that area, am I knot still metering for the centre of the frame?

Thanks again

The metering is done differently based on whatever metering mode you are using, if you use matrix metering then the entire scene is evaluated with a weighting towards which ever focus point you have. If you use spot metering then it will mostly adjust exposure to the focus point only and ignore the rest of the scene, if you use center weighted then it is like matrix but puts more weight to the center - but you center weighted is pretty useless for most things.

Those are the basics, each camera will behave slightly differently.

 

[steve_c]

ISO should be the last exposure modification to make (if you make it at all)

1) Simply select the aperture you want for the scene to give the depth of focus you want, e.g. eye in focus only, whole head in focus, couple in focus, whole scene in focus, foreground-to back ground in focus.
1) b) Occasional you ant to override the auto exposure little using exposure compensation for strongly back lit scenes or if you want to force black shadows in a silhouette - a little EC change if needed
1) b) ii) make sure you are using the appropriate metering mode and have it tuned to your desire.

2) Double check shutter speed is fast enough for the focal length and movement, if not
up the ISO.

2) b) Learn to use auto ISO, there is not much point in changing the ISO reach the desired shutter speed manually. Some cameras don't handle different shutter speeds for different focal lengths but the newer models often allow you to set up rules, e.g. 1/30th at 24mm and 1/100th at 70mm etc.


Don't focus and recompose, choose the focus point closest to the subject- you can experience horrible focus issues at shallow DoF. Fast lenses typically have strong field curvature so focus will be drastically different from the center to edge. Acquire a rough focus first before exposing because in all exposure modes the focus point has influence, even in matrix mode. Once exposure is set confirm focus.


Rarely a need to ever touch WB, specially not in a dynamic scene. just leave it on auto. The only time it makes sense is when shooting things like landscapes on a tripod and you are using ETTR (exposing to the right). When you review histograms to check exposure the histograms are based on the embedded jpeg, so colour and contrast will affect the RGB histograms and make it harder to find colour channel clipping points. Shooting street you should never care about WB really.

Al of this should be natural and very fast. If you setup auto ISO correctly then you are left with selecting an aperture and focus point. The aperture choice is normally trivial, just don't go too wide when you need things like a wedding couple to both be on focus when the are not parallel to you. a lot of the time you wont even have to bother changing the aperture.

Your work is now reduced to getting a good composition of a good moment, not fiddling with meaningless settings that can be done better by the camera than you in most situations.

Fantastic advice. Thanks very much for taking the time to post.

The metering is done differently based on whatever metering mode you are using, if you use matrix metering then the entire scene is evaluated with a weighting towards which ever focus point you have. If you use spot metering then it will mostly adjust exposure to the focus point only and ignore the rest of the scene, if you use center weighted then it is like matrix but puts more weight to the center - but you center weighted is pretty useless for most things.

Those are the basics, each camera will behave slightly differently.

OK that seems to make sense. However. I am using spot metering on the 5D and it is still not taking the reading from the selected focus point.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Learn to use the wheel at the back as exposure compensation. Start with the needle in the centre - 0. If its too dark, dial it to the right. If it's too bright, dial it to the left.

With experience, you will learn when to dial it in and how much before you even lift the camera up to your eye. You will have the focus point pre-selected so when the camera is up to your eye, you know how the picture is framed and composed. With the wheel dialed to the correct exposure compensation. Snap. 1 Shot. Done.

That's the goal, and you can get there quicker than you think.

 

[steve_c]

Thank, Raymond.

I will give it a whirl.

Actually, just having a browse around and it looks as if the 1D can manage spot metering from a different focus point but unfortunately the 5D is without this feature.

Many posts advising the switching the focus / exp lock around so am going to try that. Seems strange to me but I'm sure I will get used to it.

 

[Hunders]

Back button focusing is much better and it's the one feature I miss most about ditching my Canon and moving to the X-Pro 1.

 

[D.P.]

Fantastic advice. Thanks very much for taking the time to post.



OK that seems to make sense. However. I am using spot metering on the 5D and it is still not taking the reading from the selected focus point.

I forgot to mention is that WB only affects jpegs, assuming you shoot RAW it doesn't change anything at all in the captured image which is why it can be mostly ignored. However, software like lightroom will use the WB values in the metadata so having the correct WB in the field will remove one step in the processing chain so it is nice to get things close, but auto WB should do that for you. You then have much more control in post processing to set the WB as you wish.

 

[D.P.]

Learn to use the wheel at the back as exposure compensation. Start with the needle in the centre - 0. If its too dark, dial it to the right. If it's too bright, dial it to the left.

With experience, you will learn when to dial it in and how much before you even lift the camera up to your eye. You will have the focus point pre-selected so when the camera is up to your eye, you know how the picture is framed and composed. With the wheel dialed to the correct exposure compensation. Snap. 1 Shot. Done.

That's the goal, and you can get there quicker than you think.

^^ this really. The auto exposure normally does a very good job, sometimes it makes mistakes (or more likely makes a decision to preserve highlights or shadows and you want the opposite prioritised).

With experience you learn what, when and why the metering will be wrong and you will intuitively know before hand how much EC to add if any. At the very least this process is similar to manual exposure, you can look at the image and adjust the EC and try again - but you will be much faster this time because the metering will get you very close or spot on perfect most of the time.

 

[Andy90]

Page 173 of the Canon EOS 5D Mark III Manual is I think what you need.

The * button (which a lot of people use for back button focusing) is the AE Lock.

Meter off your subject, press the * button, which locks the exposure and then you can alter the position of your subject within the frame.

Unless you keep your finger on it, to keep the exposure locked, it will automatically reset after taking one shot. If you keep the button pressed it will allow you to take additional shots with the same exposure settings.

Very useful for backlit subjects.

 

[steve_c]

Thanks, Andy

I've been trying it today and it's really alien to me.

Manual shooting with recomposing felt really natural. The back button focusing (with choosing focus point) and exposure locking is taking me a lot longer to frame and correctly expose a photo.

I'm sure it's because I'm very new to this technique and I know that recomposing really have a negative effect (especially with really fast lenses such as the 50mm 1.2 I'm using) so I will stick with it and persevere...

 

[GTRacer]

@Andy: The 5DIII already has a dedicated AF ON button, no need to reassign * to it.

Steve, you'll get used to it after a while, in fact I find it quite strange you went from M to Av, usually it's the other way around for most people! Honestly if you're quick enough with manual then using Av isn't a big deal, I have to do it all the time with my film cameras, I just take an incident reading with my handheld meter and then adjust my camera settings based on how I want the scene to look. Back button focusing is well worth sticking with though, especially when you combine it with your camera's continuous AF tracking mode.

 

[D.P.]

Thanks, Andy

I've been trying it today and it's really alien to me.

Manual shooting with recomposing felt really natural. The back button focusing (with choosing focus point) and exposure locking is taking me a lot longer to frame and correctly expose a photo.

I'm sure it's because I'm very new to this technique and I know that recomposing really have a negative effect (especially with really fast lenses such as the 50mm 1.2 I'm using) so I will stick with it and persevere...

You don't need to lock exposure most of the time but it can be useful in some situation, it can also be bad detrimental. If you use spot metering and your subject moves into different lighting you want your metering to adjust, likewise in matrix metering if you change composition after exposing then your exposure could be wrong. I very rarely use exposure lock for these reasons. Occasionally when being lazy I will meter for the sky and then lower the camera to preserve highlights in clouds but the same can be done with more control using Exposure compensation.

 

[mrk]

Hi all

Following my thread here, after a member saying that shooting in manual was a strange way of doing things (over Av for street shots etc), I decided to go and give it a try.

As I said in the original thread, I am very new to photography and picking things up as I go.

I am a little confused as to what the process of shooting in Av is.

Originally, when shooting in manual, I would take the following approach (for street or portrait work):

1) Establish WB and ISO needed for scene
2) Dial in desired apperture and guess at shutter speed
3) Centre the viewfinder on subject and dial back / forward SS to expose correctly
4) Half-press the shutter button to focus
5) Recompose
6) Shoot

I am now trying to shoot in Av:

1) Establish WB and ISO needed for scene
2) Dial in desired apperture
3) Centre the viewfinder and half-press the shutter to focus
4) Recompose

When I recompose, the light meter re-calibrates to whatever is in the centre of the viewfinder and usually my subject will be incorrectly exposed.

I am certain that this is a ridiculous question (I re-iterate that I am beginner) but what am I doing wrong?

Do I lock in exposure first and then focus / recompose?

Thanks in advance as usual...

Shooting in manual is no problem at all, if someone is telling you that it's odd then they are quite simply wrong in stating this. There is no right or wrong way to photograph something. You use what you find most comfortable and as such people will always post the way they do it as an ideal approach.

I've applied bold to number 2 because in manual you don't need to guess the shutter speed. I assume you're looking at the LCD on top rather than adjusting from the viewfinder hence the guessing because with the viewfinder active the light meter is also active, use this to your advantage and there's no need to guess exposure. You can over expose by a certain amount and still recover OE area detail in post if you are shooting in RAW if it comes to that as the sensor allows for it. After you've spent more time with the camera in manual mode you'll become familiar with different lighting situations and won't need to use the light meter to know what exposure to use.

The orange text I've highlighted because you can use the exposure lock button to take readings from whatever you want to expose for. I use this method quite a lot for those few times I actually use Av. It's useful and it's as you would expect, simply centre the frame on the subject, press exposure lock and then take the shot with whatever composition you're after.

For the record on the majority of my street shots I tend to use manual and single AF point and manually select any of the 61 AF points as needed. I have DOF preview button set to be AI servo and will kick in servo if I'm tracking a subject and pan with them once they're in the part of the frame I want them to be for the desired composition.

There's no real need to choose the ISO either, you've got the MkIII so can easily get away with a blanket ISO for the day on the street or you could select auto ISO and set the ISO range to a desired amount, say 100 to 800 and the camera will use what's best for whatever you shoot. This will also help avoid getting a shutter speed that might capture shake as well if you do decide that Av is the best route for your style of shooting.

You don't need to set white balance if you're shooting RAW, set to AWB and it will be accurate 99% of the time. Where it isn't you can simply correct it in post with no downside.

 

[ElDude]

Speaking for myself, I never bother remapping buttons to change how you do things. My 5dmk3 is set up as it was the day I bought it. Maybe I'm weird but I find using the camera as standard is easier than switching around buttons. I did briefly try the remapping idea that a few use, but it didn't suit me.

Auto ISO is handy for rapidly changing scenes, but I don't bother with that as I've found that in certain lighting, the camera has a heavy bias to high ISO. That being said, you can force it to a maximum allowable ISO.

As for white balance, true you don't need to set that, but I prefer to do so just to speed up processing afterwards. Those two seconds add up

In stable light environments I generally use manual, ISO100 and take a few test shots. Mainly I'm lazy if wandering streets and use AV Manual is used more when I'm looking for an exact lighting look with what I do outside of gig photography.

Really though it's all about finding what suits how you take photos, which is why you always get varying answers to this question. A mate of mine has just bought his first camera (a Nikon 5200) and he's in a similar boat. There's so many people out there that tell you that you HAVE to do things a certain way to learn, which is ridiculous as it makes the learning curve much more difficult if you believe everything people say!

 

[steve_c]

Great points about the ISO and WB. Probably could save a fair bit of time just leaving those on manual and changing anything like that in post.

I've spent a day shooting with the back button focus and using shutter button to lock exposure.

It's painfully slow and seems convoluted when compared with the speed that I tend to do things at in manual.

If I'm on the street and I want to shoot a portrait (in manual), I usually centre the subject, adjust shutter to expose, half press to focus and recompose / shoot. Further shots in the same lighting conditions are obviously executed a lot faster.

With the new way of doing things in Av: Centering subject and locking exposure, moving focus point, back button to focus and then shutter to take the shot seems to be taking far longer and doesn't feel quite "right".

I'll give it a few more days and see how it feels...

Once again, thank you all for the input.