Canon EOS Rebel T8i/850D For Dummies. Julie Adair King

electronic level, shown in Figure 1-22. This feature is helpful when you use a tripod and want to ensure the camera is level to the horizon. When the horizontal line appears green, as shown in Figure 1-22, you’re good to go. By default, you need to press the Info button twice to shift from the Quick Control screen to the level. Your first press turns off the screen, and the second press brings up the level. Press Info again to return to the Quick Control screen. Again, which screens appear when you press the Info button depends on the Info Button Display Options setting, found on Setup Menu 4. You can find details on this option in the section “Setup Menu 4,” found near the end of this chapter.

      FIGURE 1-22: You can swap out the Quick Control screen with an electronic level.

      Decoding viewfinder data

A limited assortment of shooting data, such as the shutter speed and f-stop, appears at the bottom of the viewfinder, as shown in Figure 1-23. How much data appears depends on your exposure mode and what picture settings are currently in force; the figure shows the basics. Upcoming chapters explain the entire cadre of data.

      FIGURE 1-23: The default viewfinder display (left) can be customized to include a grid, electronic level, and flicker warning (right).

In the framing area of the viewfinder, you may see marks that indicate the portion of the screen that contains autofocusing points. (The appearance of the autofocus markings depend on your autofocus settings, which you can explore in Chapter 5.) In the left screen in the figure, the four black brackets represent the autofocusing area.

      Here’s how to display and customize the viewfinder:

       Displaying viewfinder data: The markings in the framing area of the viewfinder appear automatically when you first turn on the camera; to display the shooting data, press the shutter button halfway. The display remains active for a few seconds after you release the button, and then the viewfinder display shuts off to save battery power. To wake up the display, press the shutter button halfway and release it.

       Adding a level and gridlines to the display: You can display gridlines in the viewfinder, as shown on the right in Figure 1-23, as well as a symbol that represents the electronic level. (When the lines at the sides of the symbol are horizontal, as in the figure, the camera is level.)To hide or display these features, open Setup Menu 4 and choose Viewfinder Display. On the next screen, change the settings from Hide to Show. As you select each option, a preview appears at the bottom of the screen to remind you how enabling each feature affects the display.

       Display a flicker-detection warning: When the Mode dial is set to an advanced exposure mode (P, Tv, Av, or M), the Viewfinder Display option on Setup Menu 4 offers a third setting, Flicker Detection. When the camera detects light sources that are blinking, which can mess up exposure and color, the word Flicker! appears in the area labeled in Figure 1-23. The biggest offenders are tubular fluorescent bulbs, which blink on and off so quickly that it’s difficult for the human eye to detect them. When you see this warning, you may want to enable the Anti-flicker Shoot option found on Shooting Menu 4. This feature is covered in Chapter 4.

The number in brackets at the right end of the viewfinder does not represent the shots-remaining value, as it does in the Quick Control screen. Instead, that number — 9, in Figure 1-23 — represents the number of maximum burst frames. This number relates to shooting in the Continuous capture modes, where the camera fires off multiple shots in rapid succession as long as you hold down the shutter button. (Chapter 2 has details.) Although the highest number that the viewfinder can display is 9, the actual number of maximum burst frames may be higher. At any rate, you don’t really need to pay attention to the number until it starts dropping toward 0, which indicates the camera’s memory buffer (its temporary internal data-storage tank) is filling up. If that happens, just give the camera a moment to catch up by lifting your shutter-button finger.

Switching to Live View Mode

      Like most dSLRs sold today, your camera offers Live View, which disables the viewfinder and instead displays a live preview of your subject on the camera monitor. The following list explains the basics of using Live View:

        Switching to Live View for photography: Press the Live View button, labeled in Figure 1-24, to shift from viewfinder shooting to Live View mode. You hear a clicking noise and then the viewfinder goes dark, and the monitor displays the live scene. By default, some shooting data appears as well, with the amount and type of information varying depending on your exposure mode and a few other settings. The figure shows the display as it appears in the Scene Intelligent Auto exposure mode when the default picture-taking settings are in force.FIGURE 1-24: In Live View mode, a live preview of your subject appears on the monitor, and the viewfinder is disabled. If nothing happens after you press the Live View button, you may need to reset the Live View Shoot menu option to Enable. This is the default setting, but it’s possible you or another user changed the setting to Disable at some point. Where you find the Live View Shoot option depends on your exposure mode; in the Auto, SCN, and Creative Filters modes, go to Shooting Menu 2, as shown on the left in Figure 1-25. In the advanced shooting modes (P, Tv, Av, and M), the option lives on Shooting Menu 4, as shown on the right.FIGURE 1-25: To use Live View, make sure this menu option is set to Enable.Why would Canon give you the option to disable Live View functionality? Because it’s easy to accidentally press the Live View button and switch to that mode when you don’t really want to go there.

       Engaging Live View for movie recording: For movie recording, simply moving the On/Off switch to the Movie mode setting (represented by the movie-camera symbol) engages Live View. You can’t use the viewfinder in Movie mode, so the setting of the Live View Shoot menu option has no impact.In Movie mode, pressing the Live View button starts and stops recording. To exit Movie mode, move the On/Off switch to On if you want to begin shooting stills. Move the switch to Off if you’re done shooting.

      In many ways, shooting photos in Live View mode is the same as for viewfinder photography, but some important aspects, such as autofocusing, work very differently. Chapter 3 shows you how to take a picture in Scene Intelligent Auto exposure mode using Live View; Chapter 8 covers movie recording. Other chapters mention Live View variations related to specific picture-taking options.

      Customizing the Live View display

By default, the Live View display offers the data shown on the left in Figure 1-26 when you’re taking photographs in the Scene Intelligent Auto exposure mode. When you record movies in that exposure mode, the default display appears as shown on the right. In any exposure mode, the black bars at the top and bottom of the display indicate the boundaries of the 16:9 movie frame.