Page 1 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 Canon 30D User's Guide © 2006 KenRockwell.com CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 2 BASICS: CAMERA ..................................................................................... 3 LENS ........................................................................................................... 5 CONTROLS .........................................................................................
Page 2 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 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.
Page 3 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 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.
Page 4 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 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.
Page 5 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 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.
Page 6 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 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.
Page 7 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 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.
Page 8 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 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.
Page 9 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 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.
Page 10 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 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.
Page 11 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 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).
Page 12 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 INFO: In playback, this button cycles through three kinds of display: 1.) Just the image, or 2.) Image with file number, frame counts and f/stop and shutter speed, or 3.) A page of more data and a useless single-channel histogram. You'll get much better results with the RGB histogram you should select in the Playback Menu. If the LCD is off, you're in shooting mode and pressing INFO calls up a screen of data related to the pictures you're about to take.
Page 13 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 Unmarked Button above Big Dial: This is a 9-way navigation button. You can push it in 8 directions, or push it straight in. In playback it lets you scroll around the image after zooming in. It ignores you if you're not zoomed in, or are in the multi-image playback mode. In shooting it ignores you, unless you first press the top-right [+] button (explained below).
Page 14 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 Top Rear Corner * (star), Checkerboard, (-) Button: This is on the top right of the rear of the 30D. In playback: Zooms out (-), or if you're zoomed all the way out, the next push gets you into the 9-image display mode (checkerboard). During shooting: * is Exposure Lock. Press * to lock the exposure. You'll see "*" in the finder to confirm after you've pressed it.
Page 15 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 Flash Tip for the "*" Button: Preflash - Eyes Closed No preflash - eyes open The 30D, like most cameras, fires a preflash a fraction of a second before the actual photo is taken to set how bright the flash should be. Then it takes the picture a fraction of a second later with a second pop of the flash.
Page 16 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 SIDE and FRONT CONTROLS Look for the buttons on the front of the 30D near the lens. Lightning Bolt Button (just above and to left of EOS 30D label): Press it to pop up the built in flash. That's all it does. Unlike Nikon, you change the flash brightness (exposure compensation), if needed, with the flash exposure compensation button on the top of the camera. The finder flashes BUSY while the flash recycles.
Page 17 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 CUSTOM FUNCTIONS Custom Functions are little menu tweaks that let you configure the 30D to your liking. You are welcome to forget all of these if your 30D is the way you want it. There are a couple I suggest you change to get the most out of your 30D. They are easy to see and to change. There are 18 of them, each with their own options. Some are wonderfully helpful while and others are only for special purposes. Sadly they are all well hidden in the menu system.
Page 18 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 THE CUSTOM FUNCTIONS The default setting is "0" for each. 01: SET function when shooting lets you have the SET button do something helpful while shooting. These are cool; they give you instant access to your choice of a function, skipping a few clicks. I use the Change Quality setting. Options are: 0: Nothing. The 30D ignores the SET button while shooting. 1: Change the Quality setting. You have to look at the top LCD. 2: Select a different Picture Style.
Page 19 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 04: Shutter Button/AE Lock Button chooses the function of these two buttons. Hint: The AE lock button is the one marked *. 0: AF/AE Lock: The shutter button focuses the lens and locks the exposure. The * button locks exposure, too, and holds it after you've released it. I have no idea how to unlock the set exposure, except by cycling the power or tapping the AF-WB or DRIVE-ISO buttons. 1: AE Lock/AF is backwards from how I like things.
Page 20 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 09: Bracket Sequence/Auto Cancel sets two things. (You enable bracketing in the menus.) Sequence is the order of the exposures. Normal is 0 - +, which means the first shot is at the normal exposure, the next is underexposure, and the last is overexposure. You can change this to - 0 +, which makes the underexposure first, followed by the normal and then overexposed shot. This also applies to WB bracketing: + refers to more green or amber; - refers to more magenta or blue.
Page 21 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 12: Mirror Lockup. This is to prevent vibration and blur for exposures on a tripod. Neither Canon nor Nikon do this correctly. They all did it correctly in the 1960s - 1980s, which is to have the mirror flip up as soon as the self-timer starts. 0: Disable. Normal shooting. 1. Enable: Mirror flips up on first press of the shutter button, and picture is taken either when the shutter is pressed again, or the self-timer completes (if you've set the self timer.
Page 22 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 15: Shutter Curtain Sync (Flash Mode) is how you select rear-curtain sync to make moving objects look like they're moving in the right direction, presuming you're using a slow shutter speed in Tv, Av or M modes. 0: 1st curtain: Flash fires as soon as the shutter opens. 1: 2nd Curtain: Flash fires at the very last instant of exposure.
Page 23 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 17: Magnified View enables you to zoom the image right after you shoot it. I have no idea why this requires a menu option, even my canon point-andshoots do this, automatically. 0: Playback only. You have to hit the Play button before you can zoom in. Stupid. 1: Review and Playback. You can zoom in after hitting the Play button as before. Also, while the image is reviewing, you can hold the squiggle/printer button while pressing the (+) (magnify) button to zoom in.
Page 24 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 MENUS These are called up with the MENU button. The 30D needs to be awake to respond to the MENU button. Tap the shutter button if the 30D has fallen asleep, which it does after a minute idle. You'll see a bunch of things on the rear LCD. You move up and down by spinning the big rear dial. You can jump to the top of any of the three color-coded sections by pressing the JUMP button.
Page 25 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 SHOOTING MENU Quality: Here's where you select file type, image size, and JPG compression level. • I use Large Normal, which is L with a stair-step icon. Default is Large Fine, which is next to it as L and a quarter-circle icon. Fine makes a file with the same resolution and number of pixels, but with twice the file size (half as many pictures per card) and with 1% better quality. L is an image 3,504 x 2,336 pixels.
Page 26 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing): I leave this OFF (one dot). In the old days of film, less skilled photographers would guess and try several exposures for each shot, hoping to have at least one turn out. This is obsolete in digital, since you can see the exposure on the LCD monitor. Ansel Adams had stern words for photographers who had to resort to bracketing, even in the days of film.
Page 27 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 WB SHIFT/BKT: This allows you change (shift) the white balance slightly, or bracket them (make several shots, each slightly different). Shift: This is what you do to make subtle color shifts to images. To do this, press MENU, spin the dial to select WB SHIFT/BKT, press SET to get into it, use the unmarked rear navigation button to set the color shift, and press SET to lock it in.
Page 28 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 COLOR TEMP lets you set the images to exactly your preference of warmth or coolness (amber or blue.) Press MENU, spin the dial to COLOR TEMP, press SET, spin the dial to your choice, and press SET to lock it in. You can't use this setting until you select [K] with the WB button. Canon makes this simple setting needlessly complex. Canon makes you do this because they combined the WB button with the AF button.
Page 29 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 Monochrome is Black and White. You can change the contrast, sharpening, add a sepia effect or even simulate the effect of using a colored filter in front of the lens in B/W. B/W of course offers no saturation or skin tone (color tone) tweaks User Def. 1, 2 and 3 are where you store your own sets of color parameters. It's important to play with these to get the look you want. This is how I get bold color right out of my camera.
Page 30 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 Now let me describe the individual settings: Contrast: I leave this in the middle. You can soften images by turning it down, or make them harsher by cranking it up. I prefer Nikons which have an AUTO mode which adjusts automatically to the subject. On Canons you need to set this up or down manually if you have an unusually contrasty or flat subject. It always looks fine to me left alone at 0. Sharpness is really how much extra sharpening is added. I leave at the default.
Page 31 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 PLAYBACK MENU You get to the Playback menu by pressing MENU and spinning the big dial, or pressing MENU and then JUMP. The 30D needs to be awake to respond to the MENU button. Tap the shutter button if the 30D has fallen asleep, which it does after a minute idle. Protect allows you to prevent erasure of individual files. To do it, press MENU, get to Protect, and press SET.
Page 32 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 Histogram must be set to RGB. The Brightness (default) setting is useless, as are all single-channel histograms. This is a major reason to buy the 30D over the 20D. Read more at Histograms and Color Histograms. The Brightness setting can lead you to think you have a good exposure, when in fact you could have heinous overexposure, which would be obvious on the RGB histogram. The Brightness setting is only helpful for B/W photos, it's worse than useless in color.
Page 33 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 WRENCH MENU You get to the Wrench menu by pressing MENU and spinning the big dial, or pressing MENU and then JUMP. The 30D needs to be awake to respond to the MENU button. Tap the shutter button if the 30D has fallen asleep, which it does after a minute idle. Auto Power Off sets how long the 30D stays awake before going to sleep. I find the default of 1 minute is fine.
Page 34 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 The LAN(WFT-E1) setting is for use with the WFT-E1 Wireless File Transmitter. The WFT-E1 is a $999 gizmo and antenna that screws to your camera and attaches with a cable. It allows you to FTP your shots to your computer over Wi-Fi. Format is important. Formatting erases the card and lets it start fresh. I format my card every time I shoot anything. Frequent formatting prevents file errors and corruption.
Page 35 of 35 © Ken Rockwell 2006 Firmware lets you check your revision number, and update it if you have a newer version on a CF card. Dedication Adorama was a big help with this article. If you find this article helpful and want to get a 30D, getting it there helps us all continue to do more of this.
