Menu Position MENU --> 
2 -->Bracket Settings
What it Does Sets 2 variables that kick in every time you shoot in a bracketed mode
Recommended Setting Self-timer: Off. Bracket order 0 --> - --> +
Chapter 14 discusses the very useful Dynamic Range Optimization function. DRO Bracketing mode is useful if you’re not sure which manual DRO setting to use. With this setting set to “Hi”, the camera takes one picture but saves 3 different images, each taken with the equivalent Level 1, 3, and 5 to the image. With “Lo”, the Camera will apply Level 1, 2, and 3 to the image.
TIP: Shooting RAW+JPG, combined with DRO Bracketing as described above, will result in SIX files on your memory card for every single click of the shutter: three JPG files (each with different levels of DRO applied), and three identical RAW files (with only slightly different file sizes – that’s due to the different EXIF information and thumbnail contained within the file). |
Menu Position MENU --> 2 -->Bracket Settings
What it Does Sets 2 variables that kick in every time you shoot in a bracketed mode
Recommended Setting Self-timer: Off. Bracket order 0 --> - --> +
Bracketing means “I’m not exactly sure what my settings should be, so take several pictures, adjusting a variable each time and I’ll figure out which one I like later”. Your camera has a lot of bracketing modes, all accessible via the Fn. --> Drive Mode menu and described in Section 6.8.
So what do these two Bracket Settings do?
Self-timer: This lets you choose a delay of 2, 5, or 10 seconds after you press the shutter release button when any of the above bracketing modes are selected. This can be useful for situations where your camera is on an unsteady tripod and you don’t want your finger push to shake the camera. (This can happen a lot when you’ve carefully set up a macro shot.) This has been broken out into its own menu because normally the bracketing and self-timer functions would be mutually exclusive if they all appeared in the Drive menu.
Bracket Order: When the exposure bracketing feature is enabled, the camera takes three, five, or nine pictures, each at a slightly different exposure to “cover your bases”. (This was especially necessary back in the days of slides.) The question becomes, “In what order should the images be taken?” The camera gives you two choices:
Choice #1: Normal Exposure --> Underexposed --> Overexposed (0 --> - --> +)
Choice #2: Underexposed --> Normal Exposure --> Overexposed (- --> 0 --> +)
I recommend the setting which takes the “normal exposure” first, only because when you’re shooting things that move, the decisive moment becomes a higher priority and the backup “just in case” exposure tweaks are slightly less important.
Menu Position MENU --> 3 -->Flash Mode
What it Does Chooses between Auto, Fill Flash, and some specialty flash settings
Recommended Setting I keep it on “Fill Flash” most of the time
Before I discuss the various flash modes and what they do, let me summarize what flash modes are available in what shooting modes:
Mode |
Flash Off |
AutoFlash |
Fill Flash |
Slow Sync. |
Rear Sync. |
Wireless |
P/A/S/M |
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* |
* |
* |
* |
Intelligent / Superior Auto |
* |
* |
* |
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Movie |
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Panorama |
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Portrait |
* |
* |
* |
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Anti-Motion Blur |
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Sports |
* |
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* |
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Macro |
* |
* |
* |
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Landscape |
* |
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* |
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Sunset |
* |
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* |
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Night Scene |
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Night Portrait |
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Handheld Twilight |
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I probably don’t have to describe what this does. :-)
Truth be told, there’s no real reason to use the Flash Off feature. Just turn the accessory flash off – it's much faster. Or just push the pop-up flash down. Done.
With Auto Flash selected (in the allowed modes), and the pop-up flash is up (or the accessory flash is on), the camera decides whether to use the flash or not, and when it decides to do so it behaves according to the “Fill Flash” behavior described below. In this mode, you can't force the camera to use a flash if it doesn't think it's warranted.
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Figure 6-12: Flash mode can also be used to better capture close action and to give your subjects better illumination. To get this unusually well-lit bird shot I left bread crumbs on the back of a boat that was going close to shore and waited. (Oh, and I had “Fill Flash” selected.) |
Fill-flash will ALWAYS fire the flash when it's attached and on. It behaves differently depending on how much light there is in the scene.
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