Canon 30D User Manual

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Canon 30D User's Guide

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 2

BASICS: CAMERA ..................................................................................... 3

LENS ........................................................................................................... 5

CONTROLS ................................................................................................ 6

TOP PANEL CONTROLS ....................................................................... 6

REAR PANEL CONTROLS................................................................... 11

SIDE and FRONT CONTROLS ............................................................. 16

CUSTOM FUNCTIONS.......................................................................... 17

THE CUSTOM FUNCTIONS.................................................................. 18

MENUS...................................................................................................... 24

SHOOTING MENU ................................................................................ 25

PLAYBACK MENU................................................................................ 31

WRENCH MENU ................................................................................... 33

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INTRODUCTION

This is how I use and set up a Canon 30D.

Want free live phone support? In the USA, call (800) OK-CANON from 10AM Midnight M-F, 10AM - 8PM Saturday, Eastern Time. They're closed Sundays.

I start off explaining things so my mom can understand, and get on to deciphering every menu item for advanced users at the end.

This article will teach you to be an expert on the 30D's controls and menus. It also includes a lot of tips, tricks, and the settings I prefer to use.

To get great photos you still need to get yourself to the right place at the right time and point the camera in the right direction, which is a lot harder than mastering the 30D. Right out of the box at default settings the 30D does a great job. Making a great photo involves locations, timing, patience and a whole lot more.

Below are the basics. Explicit details follow in later pages.

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BASICS: CAMERA

Many of these adjustments require you to be in the P, Tv, Av or M exposure modes. You set that on the top dial. The cute preset modes often lock out some adjustments. I never use these preset scene modes and won't cover them.

I leave most settings at their defaults and use the Program exposure mode. I never use the cute little preset icon modes because I prefer to set anything special myself.

Power: I always leave the power switch ON or set to the line (explained at Controls). The 30D ignores all the other buttons except the shutter once it goes to sleep a minute after you ignore it. The only way to get the 30D to respond to other keys, like Playback or MENU, is to tap the shutter button to wake it up. I don't bother turning it OFF, since it doesn't use the batteries while sleeping. I only turn it off if it's going in a case where the shutter might get tapped unintentionally.

ISO: I use 100 in daylight. If the light gets dim and my images would get blurry from slower shutter speeds I increase the ISO to 400, 800 or 1,600. I never bother with in-between settings like 250 or 640. Unlike film, the 30D looks great at high ISOs, so I use them anytime I need them. I'd much rather have a slightly grainy but sharp image than a less grainy and blurry one. See examples of the noise and grain on my noise comparison page. I explain how to set these on my Controls page, and I explain ISO (sensitivity to light) on my ISO page.

White Balance: I use AUTO. I explain how to set these on the 30D at Controls. See my White Balance Examples page and my White Balance page for why you'd want to change them.

Quality: I shoot Large JPG NORMAL, which shows as L and a stair-step icon on the rear and top LCDs. Large is 3,504 x 2,336 pixels image size. I don't bother with RAW. See RAW vs. JPG and file format examples from a Nikon D200 for explanations and examples of the various settings. I explain how to set these at Menus.

For parties or sports where' I'll be shooting hundreds and hundreds of images, I shoot Medium Normal (M and stair step icon) to save file space. The images still look great!

I've made 12 x 18" prints of the same shot and seen no difference among the file types. Don't worry!

I never use FINE, which is the quarter circle in place of the stair step icon. It looks the same to me and takes up twice the file space.

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Picture Style: This is where you set the "look" of your images: saturation, color, contrast, etc. I prefer the vivid color I get from Fuji's Velvia 50 film, so I tweak the 30D to give color almost as vivid as I can get. The 30D has a much wider range of saturation adjustment than most other cameras, so halfway up on a 30D is the same as all the way up on a 20D, D80 or D200.

I leave everything at normal, and set the saturation to +2, +3, or, if I'm sitting down, +4. +4 is pretty wild. Try them for yourself.

I explain how to set this later at Picture Styles.

FOCUS: I use AI Focus. This clever mode automatically selects either of the two other focus modes. The other two focus modes are ONE SHOT, which means the 30D locks and holds the focus for you to compose still subjects, or AI Servo, which keeps the focus active to track moving subjects. I explain how to set these on my Controls page.

METERING: Evaluative (the solid dot and circle in a rectangle icon). I never use the other modes.

The other metering modes are: Center-Only (circle in rectangle, Canon calls this "Partial Metering"), Spot (dot in rectangle) or Center-Biased, Full-Frame Averaging (empty rectangle, Canon calls this "Center Weighted Averaging") modes. These modes are leftovers from before Evaluative metering was invented in 1985. I explain how to set these on my Controls page.

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LENS

I leave the AF - MF switch set to AF, for Autofocus.

If the lens has an Image Stabilizer, I leave it ON.

Some telephoto and macro lenses may have a switch to limit the range over which the lens can focus. I leave these set to the widest range. If your lens is taking too much time to hunt around and get focused, you might want to select a more restricted range, in which case the lens only looks at those ranges and will save itself from hunting.

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CONTROLS

TOP PANEL CONTROLS

Left side:

Control Wheel: I leave this on P, Program exposure. This lets the 30D select

the aperture and shutter speed, which it does perfectly all by itself.

If I want different shutter speeds or apertures than the 30D's Program mode selections, I spin the front dial to select other combinations. Easy! Spinning the front dial in the Program mode is much faster and easier than switching to any of the other modes.

I'll use Tv ("Time value") if I want to select a certain shutter speed only, in which case the 30D selects the aperture. I never use this.

I'll use Av ("Aperture value") if I want to select a certain aperture only, in which case the 30D selects the shutter speed. I only use this when testing lenses and need exact apertures. I don't use this for real photography.

M is manual exposure. You have to select the aperture and shutter speed the hard way: with more knobs. I'll only use this if I'm photographing something weird that requires me to lock down the exposure and keep it from changing. This most often is outdoors at night.

A-DEP is a goofy mode which is supposed to select the aperture based on how much depth-of-field you require. I've tried it, and never use it.

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The Green Rectangle mode sets everything all by itself. It disables much of the other adjustments about which I'll be writing in these pages. I only suggest the green rectangle mode for loaning your 30D to your mom. There's nothing wrong with it for starters, but defeats most of the adjustments you're here to learn.

The other modes are cute scene presets (portrait, sports, etc.) I don't use them. Instead I use Program mode and spin the front dial as needed to select fast shutter speeds for sports or big apertures for portraits or small apertures for landscapes. Many of the adjustments I'll be explaining are locked out in these preset modes.

Feel free to use any of these modes if they work for you. If you want to make more advanced adjustments in the future you may have to change to one of the P, Tv, Av or M modes above.

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Right side:

Light Bulb: Press this to light the LCD display.

AF - WB: Tap this, and now the two control dials can change these. It will stop

accepting input 6 seconds after you're done twiddling, or the instant you tap the shutter button.

AF mode is shown on the right of the LCD, it shows AI FOCUS. WB is shown on the left of the LCD, it shows AWB.

Important: these, as all the buttons, only work if you've first woken up the 30D by tapping the shutter button! Once the 30D is awake and you've tapped the AF-WB button:

1. Tap the AF-WB button and now the front dial, seen at the top of this picture, selects the Autofocus modes. I explained these on the first page.

2. Tap the AF-WB button and now the big dial on the back of the camera selects among the various White Balance options. See my White Balance Examples page and my White Balance page for the specifics.

3. Press the shutter to get back to shooting. You can leave the 30D alone, or press the AF-WB button again to get it out of the adjustment mode.

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DRIVE - ISO works the same as the AF-WB button. It will stop accepting input 6 seconds after you're done twiddling, or the instant you tap the shutter button.

Tap it and the front dial selects the drive modes. You see the self-timer mode selected on the LCD in my photo.

Other drive options are:

Single mode makes only one shot, no mater how long you hold the button. It's shown as one rectangle.

Continuous mode shoots frames for as long as you hold down the shutter button. It's shown as a rectangle with a beard (more rectangles) growing out of it.

Continuous mode comes in two speeds:

• High-speed (5FPS) and

• Low-speed (3FPS).

High-speed is shown with a little "H" next to the bearded rectangle. Lowspeed is just the bearded rectangle.

I prefer low-speed (3FPS) over high-speed (5FPS). High-speed is so fast it often fires two shots before I can remove my finger from the shutter, even if I only wanted one shot! I always use low-speed continuous, so a short press is one shot, and a long press is several. This saves me from having to switch modes. I always make several shots if the light is dim so I can pick a sharp shot from among the blurry ones.

The low speed mode is unique to the 30D. Both the 20D and 30D have high speed mode, although the 20D has no H to show for it. The 20D is always in high-speed mode if you select the bearded rectangle.

Of course for sports and action, use high-speed.

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Tap DRIVE-ISO and the big dial on the back selects among the various ISO (light sensitivity) settings. It goes in third stops from 100 - 1,600. I prefer the 20D which only offers full stops. I never use middle ISOs like 320 or 640, so they get in my way on the 30D.

ISO 3,200 is locked out to prevent people from using it by accident and complaining about noise and grain. You have to enable it in Custom Function

08. Once you've set Custom Function 08 to ON, ISO 3,200 is selected as "H," one click past ISO 1,600.

I wish Canon allowed setting 1/3 stop ISOs between 1,600 and 3,200, since only at these very high speeds is there any real difference in noise between 1,600, 2,000, 2,500 and 3,200. The 20D and 30D only allow setting 1,600 or 3,200, not 2,000 or 2,500.

I set 100 outdoors, and higher ones as I need them. There is NO Auto setting, as I love using on my Nikons. (There is a partial auto setting in some of the scene modes selected on the left top dial, which I don't use.)

Rectangles, Circles, Lightning Bolt and +/- (Metering and Flash Brightness) Button: This button works the same as the other two buttons. It

selects meter mode (the rectangle and circles) and flash brightness (the lighting bolt).

You spin the front dial to change the exposure meter modes. I explained the Meter Mode selections on the first page. I always use evaluative, which is the dot and circle inside the rectangle.

Flash brightness is set with the rear dial. I leave it on 0. + makes it brighter and - makes it darker.

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REAR PANEL CONTROLS

Note: Canon color-codes buttons in blue and silver to correspond to their

functions in playback or shooting. I may use these colors in the text to clarify.

Squiggle - Printer Button: I never use this. It's for messing around with

transferring only some images from the camera to your computer (the squiggle) or for printing directly from the camera to an inkjet printer (the printer).

Trick: The squiggle/printer button does something useful, but only if you enable it in Custom Function 17. If enabled, hold this squiggle/printer button and press the (+) (magnify) button while an image is reviewing immediately after it's shot. It will let you magnify the image without having to hit Play. Beats me why you have to enable this in a custom function; all the Canon point-andshoots do this by pressing their SET buttons without needing any menus.

Pro tip: format your card every time you shoot, pull all your images off the card at the same time, back them up, and then format the card again before shooting again. This prevents data errors. People who keep erasing (instead of formatting) cards are asking for trouble over time.

MENU: Calls up the menus.

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