Custom function settings for Canon.

[jack]

Iv'e been browsing through the menu on my 450D and was looking at the custom function settings and would be interested to know whether its best to play around with these or is it best to leave the camera at the default settings? I'm not technicaly minded with these things and am reluctant to play around with them but have made some changes. I have enabled "high iso speed" noise reduction and "long exposure" noise reduction (on these,one was set to auto the other was disabled). Also in the menu picture style i have increased the sharpness by 1 in the standard style. Hope this makes sense. I know 99% of my mistakes are user error and am trying desperately to find more ways to blame my gear!

Jack.

[Pete W]

Jack, Experimenting with the CF's is part of the learning curve, that said the web is a wonderful place to find out what functions work for different types of photography (learning from others)...
You are bound to find someone who uses the same camera and has found what they think is the best settings

Have fun with camera learning what works and what doesn't for your style/type of photography...

[jack]

Thx for the input Pete, as you said,all part of the learning curve. I have been looking online and most of what ive seen so far mainly just shows what cf settings are available on the 450d but will keep looking. I would be interested to hear what changes some of the ukbpn members may have made with regard to the bird photography as the standard on here is so high.

The few changes i have made relate mainly to landscape shots.

Jack.

[SimonP]

I tend to leave any internal noise reduction/ sharpening/ contrast adjustments off in-camera as when shooting RAW I like to have control of it all through Lightroom or similar applications. I do however, play around with the autofocus settings and anything which controls the useability of the camera until it feels right.

My RAW files tend to be fairly flat out of the camera but seem to respond well in Lightroom. Do you shoot RAW or jpeg Jack?

Nothing wrong with experimenting but its probably worth noting down the original settings as a fall back.

[jack]

Thx Simon.

Do you shoot RAW or jpeg Jack

I shoot raw 99% of the time (if i'm using the 10D then sometimes jpeg as it only 2g card.) Being pretty new to photography, when i get a bad day i wonder what i'm doing wrong and go back to the manual to see if there may be some in camera adjustments i can make that will help. I see your point about shooting in Raw, i can make the same in camera adjustments IN ACR and CS3. I'm pretty sure i can just reset to default if i'm not happy with any changes i make in the camera.

Thanks for taking the time to explain your approach, much appreciated.

Jack.

[John Stuart-Clarke]

None of the changes you have made to the defaults will affect the performance of the camera, Jack - they will just affect the jpeg preview you see. I am not familiar with the CFs on your model but the sort of things to look for which affect performance are anything pertaining to AF and/or tracking sensitivity... but these may only be accessible on higher end models as it's one of the 'extras' Canon gives to people who buy the mid- and high-end models.

I would echo the comment that you should experiment - do so on a 'safe' subject in reasonably controlled conditions so that you have time to work out what difference a setting makes. If a setting has a scale of values, go from one extreme to the other first, so that you can 'feel' the difference it makes, then refine your experimentation by tweaking, once you have understood the nature of the CF.

Have fun experimenting

[Barry Fisher]

Hi Jack,
Just in case you ever need to reset to the original settings, the Canon default custom function settings are normally the first choice in the list of options for each CF

[jack]

Thx John, thx Barry,

I would echo the comment that you should experiment - do so on a 'safe' subject in reasonably controlled conditions so that you have time to work out what difference a setting makes. If a setting has a scale of values, go from one extreme to the other first, so that you can 'feel' the difference it makes, then refine your experimentation by tweaking, once you have understood the nature of the CF.

Sound advice John, i'll do that.

Hi Jack,
Just in case you ever need to reset to the original settings, the Canon default custom function settings are normally the first choice in the list of options for each CF

cheers Barry.