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

slow you down, so I turn them off. But if you find them helpful, by all means leave them set to Enable. Just remember that instructions from here on out won’t mention them.

      6 To exit the menu system, tap Menu or press the Menu button.

      You can return to the Display Level menu at any time to turn the various features on or off as you see fit.

      FIGURE 1-17: Here’s how the menu and Quick Control screens appear in Standard mode.

Ordering from Camera Menus

      Although you can adjust some settings by using external controls, you access the majority of options via camera menus. The next section provides the basics you need to know to navigate menus and select menu options. Following that, you can find out how to deal with a special category of menu screens, the Custom Functions.

      Again, figures from this point forward show menus as they appear in Standard mode. See the preceding section if you need help switching from Guided to Standard menu display.

      Mastering menu basics

      Here’s how to display menus and adjust the options on those menus:

       Opening and closing menus: Press the Menu button (upper-left corner on the back of the camera) to display menus; press it again to exit the menu system and return to shooting. You also can just press the shutter button halfway and release it to exit to shooting mode.

       Understanding menu screens: Which menus and menu screens appear depends on the exposure mode, which you set by rotating the Mode dial on top of the camera. Things also change when you switch from still photography to Movie mode, which you accomplish by moving the On/Off switch to the movie-camera symbol. Figure 1-18 shows a menu screen as it appears for normal photography in the advanced exposure modes (P, Tv, Av, and M).FIGURE 1-18: You can access all menus only when the Mode dial is set to P, Tv, Av, or M.However, the following menu elements are common to all exposure modes:Menu icons: Icons along the top of the screen represent individual menus. In the advanced exposure modes, you get the six menus labeled in Figure 1-18: Shooting, Playback, Network, Setup, Display Level Settings, and My Menu. The My Menu feature, which enables you to build a custom menu, isn’t available in other exposure modes.Menu page numbers: Some menus are multi-page affairs. The numbers under the menu icons represent the various pages of the current menu. The Shooting menu offers five pages, as shown in the figure. This book takes the same approach to menu-page references as the Canon instruction manual: Shooting Menu 1 refers to page one of the Shooting menu, Shooting Menu 2 to page two, and so on. How many pages appear for each menu depends, again, on the exposure mode and whether the camera is set to still photography or Movie mode.The highlighted menu icon marks the active menu; options on that menu appear automatically on the main part of the screen. In Figure 1-18, Shooting Menu 1 is active.

       Selecting a menu or menu page: You have these options:Touchscreen: Tap the menu icon to select that menu; tap a page number to display that page.Quick Control dial or Main dial: Press the right or left edge of the Quick Control dial or rotate the Main dial to scroll through the menu icons. With either technique, you have to scroll through all pages of a menu to get to the neighboring menu. As you scroll through the menus, notice the color coding: red for the Shooting menu, blue for the Playback menu, purple for the Network menu, orangey-yellow (ochre?) for the Setup menu, teal for Display Level Settings, and green for My Menu.

       Select and adjust a menu setting: Again, you have a choice of techniques:Touchscreen: Tap the menu item to display options for that setting. The current setting is highlighted; tap another setting to select it. On some screens, you see a Set icon; if it appears, tap that icon to lock in your selection and exit the settings screen.Quick Control dial and Set button: Press the top or bottom edge of the Quick Control dial to highlight the menu option and then press the Set button to display the available options for that setting. Press the edges of the Quick Control dial up, down, right, or left as needed to scroll to the setting you want to select. Then press the Set button to lock in your choice. You can mix and match techniques, by the way. For example, even if you access a menu option via the Quick Control dial, you can use the touchscreen to select a setting.

      Instructions from this point forward assume you don’t need to be told the specifics of how to select menus and menu options at every turn. So instead of stepping you through each button press or touchscreen tap required to adjust a setting, instructions simply say something like “Choose Image Quality from Shooting Menu 1.” If choosing a menu option involves any special steps, however, I provide guidance.

      Navigating Custom Functions

      Custom Functions are a group of advanced settings available only in the P, Tv, Av, and M exposure modes. (Remember: You set the exposure mode via the Mode dial on top of the camera.)

To explore Custom Functions, choose that item from Setup Menu 5, as shown on the left in Figure 1-19. You then see the options screen for a specific Custom Function, as shown on the right in the figure. Here’s a guide to using the Custom Function screens:

       Interpreting the screens: The Custom Functions screens are a little intimidating until you know what’s what:Custom Functions are grouped into three categories: Exposure, Autofocus/Drive, and Operation/Others. The category number and name appear in the upper-left corner of the screen. In the right screen in Figure 1-19, for example, the label indicates that you’re looking at a screen from the Autofocus/Drive category. (C.Fn II refers to Custom Functions group two.)The number of the selected function appears in the upper-right corner. Custom Function 9 is shown on the right in Figure 1-19.Settings for the function appear in the middle of the screen. Blue text indicates the current setting. The default setting is represented by the number 0. So in Figure 1-19, Auto is selected and is the default setting.Numbers at the bottom of the screen show you the current setting for all Custom Functions. The top row of numbers represents the Custom Functions, with the currently selected function indicated with a tiny horizontal bar over the number (9, in the figure). The lower row shows the number of the current setting for each Custom Function; again, 0 represents the default.For Custom Functions 11 and 13, you instead see a dash, which is Canon’s way of letting you know that this menu option controls more than one camera setting (thus there isn’t a single default setting).FIGURE 1-19: Choose Custom Functions from Setup Menu 5 to access additional customization options.

       Scrolling from one Custom Function to the next: Press the left or right edge of the Quick Control dial or tap the left or right scroll arrows at the top of the screen. You can see the arrows in the right screen in Figure 1-19.

       Changing the setting: Activate the menu item by pressing the Set button or tapping one of the available setting options. The screen changes to look similar to the one shown on the left in Figure 1-20. To select an option, tap it or press the top or bottom edge of the Quick Control dial to move the yellow selection box over it.If you see up/down arrows on the right side of the screen, you need to scroll the menu screen to view all the available setting options. To do so, tap those arrows or press the top/bottom edge of the Quick Control dial.To lock in your setting and deactivate the settings screen, tap the Set icon or press the Set button. The screen returns to its inactive state, as shown on the right in Figure 1-20. The setting you selected appears in blue, and the row of digits at the bottom of the screen reflects the number for that setting. A blue number indicates that you chose a setting other than the default.

       Exiting the Custom Functions