Chapter Seven: Utilizing Some of the Camera’s Advanced Features
Shooting with Live View
The Canon implementation of Live View is probably the most straightforward version of shooting with an LCD that I’ve come across. The whole justification for Live View is the ability to use that large, sharp screen for composing a photograph rather than using the comparatively tiny image in the viewfinder. A benefit of having Live View on the camera is the ability to connect the camera to a computer and use the Canon EOS Utility software to remotely control many of the camera’s functions.
To shoot in Live View mode, be sure the Live View shooting/movie shooting switch is set to Live View, then press the Start/Stop button. You should now be looking at the image created by the camera, with a white-bordered rectangle measuring approximately one-half inch by three-eighths inch. The rectangle is the magnifying frame and, for both the FlexiZoneAF and the Face-Detection modes of autofocus, its center is also the focus point. (In Quick mode, the magnification frame remains to help you identify the portion of the image you wish to magnify, but the shape of the focus point will depend on your selection of AF area, and is separately positionable.) When you press the Shutter button halfway, the lens will attempt to focus, and if it’s successful, the rectangle becomes green bordered. To achieve optimal focus, press the Magnify button, and the image size increases 5x; press the Magnify button again, and the magnification goes to 10x (pressing the Magnify button a third time returns the magnification to 1x). Of course, any image capture will be at a magnification of 1x, regardless of what may be set for the LCD Monitor’s display.
If you are using any of the continuous shooting options while in Live View, the exposure determined for the first shot will be applied to subsequent shots in the series. The LCD Monitor uses a great deal of battery power, so when in Live View you will want to watch the level of charge remaining a bit more closely than normal. A fully charged battery is expected to provide power for approximately 200 photos when in Live View.
Live View can be disabled. If that has occurred, open the Live View Shoot1 menu and enable the Live View Shooting option.
Since the LCD Monitor is busy displaying the current composition, the monitor’s screen is not available for the normal Quick Control button’s display or the normal INFO button’s display. However, when you press the INFO button several times, you will see that there is a circular path of overlay displays available, with the original display showing nothing but the composed image and the focus points, the next display overlaying the first with a minimal amount of exposure data, the third display showing yet more shooting information, and the fourth display adding a brightness histogram. The fifth display replaces the histogram with the electronic level. Pressing the Quick Control button while in Live View gives access to the AF method, drive mode, metering mode, image quality setting, white balance, Picture Style, and Auto Lighting Optimizer.
Figure 7-1 presents a good graphic I’ve adapted from the camera’s Instruction Manual, which covers all the information that can be displayed (except for the electronic level) as a result of pressing the INFO button several times:
Figure 7-1. The aggregate of data that can be displayed in Live View INFO screens
In this figure, I’ve added orange color to some of the data to help set it off from adjacent data; the orange color will not appear on the LCD Monitor.
1. Current AF method, which can be either
a) FlexiZone–Single (
)
b) Face-Detection Live mode (
)
or
c) Quick mode (
)
2. Possible shots remaining
3. Maximum number of burst shots remaining
or
Number of multiple-exposure frames remaining
4. Approximate battery level
5. The AF point (shown as FlexiZone–Single)
6. Brightness histogram
7. Current white balance setting
9. Current Auto Lighting Optimizer
10. GPS acquisition status
11. Wi-Fi function
12. Live View exposure simulation
13. AE bracketing status
14. ISO Speed value
15. Highlight tone priority in effect
16. Wi-Fi transmission status
17. Exposure level indicator
18. Eye-Fi card transmission status
19. Aperture
20. Flash exposure compensation
21. Shutter speed
22. Flash ready
23. AE lock active
24. HDR shooting
or
Multiple exposure shooting
25. Image Quality
26. Metering mode
27. Drive mode
28. Shooting mode
Silent Shooting
During normal shooting, you can diminish the mechanical sounds of the camera during an exposure by choosing either Silent Single Shooting or Silent Continuous Shooting from the drive mode selections. Though Silent Continuous Shooting often slows things down a discernible amount, you will probably never be aware of any slowing while in Silent Single Shooting.
Figure 7-2. Quick Control screen with Silent Continuous Shooting selected
Figure 7-3. Drive mode settings
Silent LV Shooting
Silent LV Shooting is a feature that is unique to Live View and is controlled by the Silent LV Shooting option in the Live View Shoot2 menu. As you might infer from the name of this option, its purpose is to reduce the amount of noise associated with mirror and shutter movement. There are three choices, one of which is the Disable option. The other two will diminish the camera’s mechanical sounds. Mode 1 allows you to use continuous shooting, and Mode 2 is for single-shot exposures. According to the Instruction Manual, maximum speed in Mode 1 will be about 4.1 frames per second, though the specifications for the camera cite a maximum rate of 3 fps. If either Mode 1 or Mode 2 is set, and a Canon external flash is attached, Silent LV Shooting is ignored. If either Mode 1 or Mode 2 is set and a non-Canon external flash is attached, that flash will not fire; set this option choice to Disable in order to fire a non-Canon external flash while in Live View. (There is a Silent LV Shooting option available in the Movie Shoot1 menu as well. Setting the option in either menu results in setting the option in both menus. Though included in the Movie Shoot1 menu, this option applies only to still photos, not to movies.)
Figure 7-4. Silent LV Shooting option
Continuous Shooting
Continuous shooting describes the act of pressing the Shutter button and holding it down, allowing the camera to continuously record images, within certain constraints. Few of us were able to afford the luxury of continuous shooting in the days of film-based SLRs. Fortunately, 36 exposures was the greatest number of exposures most of us could even hope to shoot, so our risk was generally limited to a few dollars. With DSLRs we are not limited by the dimensions of a film spool but, primarily, by the capacity and data-transfer speed of the memory cards we use. Other factors affecting continuous shooting performance include ISO speed, Picture Style choices, any Custom Functions, and the internal buffer size. Under optimal conditions, continuous shooting can capture as many as four and a half images per second.
If you have a need for a long burst of photographs, something on the order of 25 or more, you will want to set you camera to shoot JPEGs, not RAW, and certainly not RAW + JPEG. The maximum continuous shooting burst when recording both RAW and JPEG is seven exposures. In RAW only, the maximum continuous shooting burst you can record is 14 exposures, unless you are using a UHS-I SDHC memory card of 8 GB or greater, in which case you can expect to record up to 17 exposures. If you are recording Large Fine JPEG images to an 8 GB SD memory card, you should expect to be able to record as many as 73 exposures in a single burst, but if you are using a UHS-I memory card, that value goes to 1,250 exposures captured in a single burst. With a shutter that’s been durability tested to 100,000 cycles, you should be able to use this extreme Large Fine JPEG continuous shooting burst example about 800 times before you need to consider having Canon replace the shutter assembly.
Figure 7-5. Canon shutter assembly, similar to that used in the EOS 6D
Look back to figures 7-2 and 7-3 for the Quick Control screen and the Drive Mode screen that can be used to quickly set the desired continuous shooting option.
Long Exposures
Long exposures are those that require one second or more. Such image captures are especially prone to increased noise, particularly at higher ISO settings. The Shoot4 menu provides the Long Exposure Noise Reduction option, which can be set to OFF, AUTO, or ON. The AUTO option allows the camera to determine whether this special noise reduction technique is applied or not, while ON forces it to be active for every long exposure. The method used is based on the assumption that noise tends to come from the same image sensor pixels, whether light is falling on them or not. So, if a long-exposure image is recorded to the camera’s internal memory, and the sensor is then read again for the same long shutter speed but without light falling on it, the dark image can be subtracted from the first image, effectively removing any noise caused by long exposure. Noise from other sources is not reduced or eliminated by this technique. Be aware that if you enable Long Exposure Noise Reduction and shoot an image requiring 27 seconds, the camera will use 27 seconds to capture the initial image, then another 27 seconds to capture the noise-only dark image; the camera is not available for picture-taking during that time.
Be conscientious about reviewing any long-exposure image captures. In addition to noise, there are several quality-diminishing factors, especially color shifts, which seem to be cumulative during long exposures.
Delayed Exposures
Most photographers, at one time or another, have faced the need to set up a camera, trigger the shutter, then somehow get themselves into the picture. Early efforts involved the photographer setting up the camera and joining the lineup in front of the camera with a rubber bulb in hand. That bulb was attached to a long piece of rubber tubing that operated a pneumatic piston on the camera, which tripped the shutter. With a bit more sophistication, and with focal-plane shutters, cameras started including self-timers, which could count down from a preset amount of time, then trip the shutter when the self-timer got to zero. Indeed, most of today’s DSLRs provide a digital version of this self-timer.
Being able to set up the camera then enable a 10-second self-timer allows most photographers sufficient time to join the group for their group photos. Most of today’s cameras also support a much shorter timer value; the EOS 6D offers a two-second timer. That’s probably not enough time for you to run to the group before the shutter trips, but it’s just right for shooting many macro photos as well as tripod-mounted long telephotos: set up the camera, trip the shutter, get out of the way for two seconds, and study your result on the Image Review screen. With the self-timer, the mirror is snapped up out of the way when you press the Shutter button, but the shutter is not opened until the timer runs to zero. That procedure eliminates any vibration introduced by the slap of the mirror being moved out of the way.
There are a number of situations in which you may want to capture one or more images with a triggering mechanism that does not provide a truly delayed exposure. Canon makes several remote-control devices that allow you to be away from the camera as you trigger the shutter. Canon markets the Timer Remote Controller TC-80N3 remote switch for EOS cameras with the N3-type socket, which is what the EOS 6D has. This remote switch has a self-timer, interval timer, long-exposure timer, and exposure-count setting feature. The timer can be set from 1 second to 99 hours. The interval timer is truly great for those rare times when you want to set up the camera, focus on a cocoon, and capture the emergence of the butterfly by taking a picture every five minutes (or whatever interval you set it for). As I’ve already mentioned, I’ve been very pleased with the Vello Wireless ShutterBoss as a remote shutter-release, self-timer, interval timer, and long-exposure timer.
Depth of Field and Focus Stacking
Let’s discuss focus stacking first. Focus stacking is not a feature of the EOS 6D, but is a technique that many EOS 6D users will use (or, maybe, should use). The entire intent in focus stacking is to increase the apparent depth of field of your image. This is a common pursuit in macro photography, but is relevant to other genres as well. The trick is to capture a series of images, starting at one end of your desired focusing range and incrementally changing the focus as you capture each successive image, working your way through the entire range. For a high-quality final product, it is essential that nothing else change—not the exposure, not the composition, and certainly not the focal length of the lens. Depending on the size of the subject and the distance to the subject, the number of focusing increments can vary from three or four to 20, 30, and possibly more. A tripod is strongly recommended for this kind of activity and using Live View can certainly help with determining where to set the focus for the next image. If you happen to have a computer with you, or if you’re working in an interior facility close to your computer, consider using the Remote Shooting function in Canon’s EOS Utility. In fact, with the EOS 6D, you can accomplish this with the camera’s Wi-Fi capability. With Remote Shooting, you get a replication of the LCD Monitor on your computer screen, which significantly enhances your ability to establish sharp focus. It also lets you control several of the camera’s functions from your computer’s keyboard, the most significant of which (for focus stacking) is manual focus. Capture an image at each focusing increment.
The next challenge is to identify the most sharply focused portion of each image and merge those pieces into a final photograph. There are some very good after-market software products that specialize in focus stacking, including the free CombineZM and the free-to-try-out Helicon Focus, which offer relatively simple user interfaces. Of course, you can also use Adobe Bridge and Photoshop, although being intended for a much more comprehensive catalog of tasks, they are not nearly as simple to set up and use. Nonetheless, figure 7-6a/b/c and figure 7-7 show a result prepared in Bridge and Photoshop CS6.
Figure 7-6a shows the detail available at the nearest focus, and figures 7–6b and 7-6c progresses to the farthest focus. Figure 7-7—the result of focus stacking—was created from 12 images that covered the entire range in small increments of deepening focus.
Figure 7-7. The result of focus stacking
If you look closely at figure 7-7, you can see that some detail was lost in the front row of chess pieces. More attention to the setup would have reduced or even eliminated that problem.
Figure 7-8 shows the masks created in Photoshop as it selects the sharpest portions of the individual images, resulting in a single composite image. Now let’s see if I can use this kind of result to justify the purchase of a small laptop to take into the field with me…
On to depth of field. When we focus on a point in our image composition, we expect to get an image of that point in the final photograph. The laws of physics dictate that as we move focus, we should expect the image of that point to become defocused, inappropriately enlarged, and blurred. This can cause the point to appear as a circle in the image. Interestingly, our eyes are a bit forgiving and there is a certain range of displacement from that point in which we do not perceive the enlargement or blurring (we might see some, if the image is enlarged enough, which is why you should consider how an image might be processed in the future). The limit of the focus-range in which we cannot distinguish the blurring caused by changing the focus is described as being the range of acceptably sharp focus, and the circle at the threshold of acceptable sharpness is known as the circle of confusion.
What all that really says to a photographer is that there really is one distance at which a point will be sharp, and for points in front or behind, there are points that are sufficiently sharp. There! We just described what depth of field is really all about: how much of an image will appear sharp, both in front of and behind the focused subject.
Figure 7-8. The Photoshop masks created by Auto-blend Layers
In photography, the greatest influence affecting depth of field is lens aperture. The smaller the aperture is (e.g., f/22), the deeper the depth of field will be and, conversely, the larger the aperture is (e.g., f/2.8), the shallower the depth of field will be. As the aperture goes to f/2.0 or f/1.4 or (gulp! If you can afford it) f/1.2, the depth of field becomes extremely shallow. With apertures below f/16 or maybe even f/11, the only change in focusing is depth of field. But with apertures above f/11 or f/16, while pursuing a greater depth of field, you may experience another phenomenon that seems to defeat the purpose: with small apertures, any lens will start to suffer from some degree of diffraction. As the aperture becomes smaller, the diffraction increases. Remember, for most lenses, the sweet spot is around f/8 to f/11.
Understanding just what depth of field is, and how to influence it, should give you better control over the composition of your photos. Far too many photographers view their photographs as simple two-dimensional representations of what they saw as they composed the picture. In reality, that composition has a third dimension: the depth of field. Furthermore, increased depth of field is not always the desired objective. If you find a gorgeous rose begging to be photographed, but the background is a mashup of falling fence and rusty garbage cans, do you walk on by or consider what you can do to significantly shorten the depth of field? If you could focus on the rose, but visually convert the background into a collage of indistinguishable shapes and soft colors, would you reconsider the opportunity?
Given that you want to capture the rose (or whatever your subject is), your first reaction is to shorten the depth of field, which means making the aperture larger. That means more light will be allowed in, so the shutter speed will probably be shortened, or the ISO set lower. These values depend on just how much you change the aperture. You have two or three tools to help in that decision: the viewfinder, the LCD Monitor if you are using Live View, and the Depth-of-Field Preview button. The image in the viewfinder is pretty sharp, but it is also small, whereas the LCD Monitor is significantly larger. In Live View mode, you can also use the Magnify button to enlarge a portion of the displayed image, which gives you precise selection of the point that will control the focus.
Having focused the image by using either viewing method, now press the Depth-of-Field Preview button to see what the final depth of field will be. This is necessary because the camera holds the lens aperture wide open during composition to give you as much light as possible for evaluating the image. The lens will stop down to the set aperture when the Shutter button is pressed, or when the Depth-of-Field Preview button is pressed. If you are using the viewfinder and have selected a very small aperture for the exposure, there may be insufficient light transmitted when the Depth-of-Field Preview button is pressed to allow you to clearly see the details of the image. Sorry, but that’s another result of the laws of physics. However, by default, the Live View screen always tries to present a display that is as close to the final image as possible, so it will remain adequately bright while you are holding the Depth-of-Field Preview button down, even for the smallest aperture the lens supports. It is possible to turn off this artificial illumination, or to limit it to be used only when the Depth-of-Field Preview button is pressed, by selecting the appropriate parameter for the Expo. Simulation option in the Live View Shoot1 menu.
GPS (Global Positioning System)
When Colonel Parkinson fathered the development of GPS for military use, I truly doubt that he envisioned anything like today’s implementations, especially those associated with tagging photos.
Though there have been some rather expensive GPS units available for attachment to certain DSLRs, the EOS 6D is one of the first DSLRs to integrate GPS into the camera body. Though not in add-on dollars, there is a price to pay for this integration. The EOS 6D’s internal GPS does not provide compass direction, but its biggest shortcoming is that it’s not a strong performer; satellite signals are lost quite easily. I (finally) get a GPS signal after several minutes, but only outside; the signal dies the minute I walk into the house or drive through a tunnel.
Even with a good selection of satellite signals, the camera’s ability to discriminate between them seems somewhat problematic. I find that by simply rotating the camera on the tripod, I can induce an error of 100 to 300 feet in surface measure, or 50 to 80 feet in elevation. Caveat: I live on the edge of the United States, at 80 feet above sea level in California. I have no idea whether that has any bearing on the apparent lack of precision.
Of course, the required degree of precision can be very subjective. When I’m looking at photos of native wildflowers from last year and wish to go back to that same location this year, 10- to 12-inch precision is not necessary but 10 to 12 feet would sure be nice. On the other hand, when I’m looking at the photos from last year’s cruise along the Rhine and find a photo of a particularly good castle, I would certainly like to know which city that was in, so losing a few feet in precision is of no concern in that instance.
Figure 7-9. A Map Utility plot of a cluster of four images
Figure 7-10. The Map Utility’s display of the logging points of a 120-mile round-trip made in one day
With the GPS feature enabled (see chapter 15 for GPS menu navigation), the EOS 6D will record GPS data (surface coordinates, elevation, UTC time and date) along with each photo. As you move photos from the camera to a computer, the GPS data stays with them, and is available for use in several different programs. Canon has added its Map Utility software to the ImageBrowser EX package on the EOS DIGITAL Solution Disk, which is part of the EOS 6D package. The Map Utility makes extensive use of Google’s mapping software, and can plot the location of each photo with a red dot on a map. Now you can use the map for reference; simply click any red dot to see the photo taken at that location.
The EOS 6D’s internal GPS can also log locations, totally separate from photorecording. Once the GPS Logger is enabled and a reliable set of satellite data is available, the camera will record the GPS data in a log file, starting immediately and continuing at the interval specified in the Position Update Timing setting. Those log files can also be processed by the Map Utility, which will take each of the logged sets of data and plot them on the map, drawing a straight line between each time-defined set of points. With a very short time interval, the plotted line becomes relatively smooth and more closely follows the routes shown on the map. Figure 7-11 shows what happens when the time interval is long in proportion to the scale of the map. Figure 7-10 is a plot based on the same log data. Therefore, it uses the same time interval as the plot in figure 7-11, but the scale of the map is such that the apparent accuracy is much higher.
Figure 7-11. Apparent errors caused by drawing straight lines to connect logged locations
Be aware that the GPS feature continues to run—and drain the battery—until you disable the GPS feature in the Set Up2 menu tab, even if you have turned the camera off. Hopefully, the next DSLR that integrates a GPS receiver will provide an external button to enable and disable GPS.
Wi-Fi
This is not a true acronym but a trademarked term for any wireless local area network product that meets the IEEE 802.11 specifications certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance. Many photographers have some kind of Wi-Fi configuration in their office already, so expanding it to accommodate communication with the EOS 6D is not an additional expense. For that reason, I’ll focus on Wi-Fi communication between the EOS 6D and a wireless-router-connected computer.
The EOS 6D has the ability, limited though it may be in some configurations, to communicate via Wi-Fi with other Wi-Fi-capable Canon cameras, smartphones (for image viewing only), Wi-Fi printers, computers (for remote control of the camera), Canon’s Image Gateway (for saving and sharing images), and with a DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance)-capable image viewer.
The ability to transfer still images between cameras is limited to JPEG files. It is also limited to transfers between Wi-Fi capable Canon cameras released in 2012 or later, and does not include camcorders with wireless capability. The ability to play back movies on the target camera is limited to file formats supported by the target camera.
Support for smartphones is limited to those running iOS 5.0 or later, or Android 2.3.3 or later. The smartphone is capable of receiving and displaying JPEG and RAW images, but any images saved on the smartphone will be S2-size JPEG images.
The initial configuration for a wireless LAN connection can be a bit of a hassle, but it only needs to be set up once. This LAN connection enables the camera to communicate with several different devices.
Chapter 15 covers the details of menu navigation for Wi-Fi support, so I’ll touch on a bit of it here, but this is not the full story. Obviously, the first thing is to enable Wi-Fi, which is easily accomplished with the Set Up3 menu. Each time you wish to use WI-Fi, you will need to enable it in this menu. Likewise, each time you wish to terminate the Wi-Fi connection, you must come here to disable it.
For each type of Wi-Fi connection, you’ll need to use the Set Up3 menu to select the Wi-Fi Function option to configure the camera’s Wi-Fi feature to recognize and communicate with the LAN-controlling router or access point. Save yourself a bit of time and frustration by gathering configuration data before you sit down with the camera.
Once you have the LAN connection configured, you’re ready to tackle imagetransfer opportunities. In my case, I usually start the WFT Pairing software (a part of the EOS Utility software), which establishes the link between the camera and my computer. You will be shown a small window in which you must select the camera you wish to pair with the computer (for most of us, there is just one entry). If the pairing operation doesn’t start the EOS Utility software, then you will want to do that manually.
Once in EOS Utility, you can choose to batch download images from the camera’s memory card to your computer or remotely control your camera. Remote control allows you to make a wireless connection from your computer to your camera over a distance of several dozen feet. Some applications let you control HDR (high dynamic range); change ISO speed, aperture, or shutter speed (depending on what the Mode Dial was set to before you placed the camera in its remote site); change the white balance setting; or set up interval shooting with the maximum number of images determined by the size of the hard disk on which you’ve selected a Destination Folder. With 130 GB of disk space, you can capture about 5,000 images with interval shooting, which comes to almost one shot per second for an hour and 40 minutes. That’s generally more than enough to capture an opening blossom or a new monarch butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. My favorite application with remote control is Live View shooting, during which I can control focus and take an extended set of images with no hands touching the camera to introduce vibration. That’s especially nice for focus stacking or just interval shooting when the subject can move closer to or further from the lens.
The Wi-Fi data transfer speed is slower than the USB cable transfer speed, so you will see some delay, and probably some jerkiness in moving objects, in the Live View display on your computer screen.
In my own environment, I can reliably maintain a Wi-Fi connection to 75 feet (I have not tested beyond that), and from that 75-foot distance I can shut off the camera and have the Wi-Fi connection automatically restored when I power on the camera.