David Busch's Canon EOS Rebel T3i 600D Guide to Digital SLR Photography (David Busch Camera Guides)

479 Pages·2011·11.67 MB·English

by  David D. Busch

DAVID BUSCH’S
®
CANON EOS REBEL
3
T i/600D
GUIDE TO DIGITAL SLR PHOTOGRAPHY
David D. Busch
Course Technology PTR
A part of Cengage Learning
Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, United States
David Busch’s Canon® EOS Rebel T3i/600D © 2012 David D. Busch
Guide to Digital SLR Photography
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David D. Busch
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Acknowledgments
Once again thanks to the folks at Course Technology PTR, who have pioneered pub-
lishing digital imaging books in full color at a price anyone can afford. Special thanks
to executive editor Kevin Harreld, who always gives me the freedom to let my imagi-
nation run free with a topic, as well as my veteran production team including project
editor Jenny Davidson and technical editor Mike Sullivan. Also thanks to Bill Hartman,
layout; Katherine Stimson, indexing; Sara Gullion, proofreading; Mike Tanamachi,
cover design; and my agent, Carole Jelen, who has the amazing ability to keep both pub-
lishers and authors happy. I’d also like to thank the Continent of Europe, without which
this book would have a lot of blank spaces where illustrations are supposed to go.
About the Author
With more than a million books in print, David D. Busch is one of the bestselling
authors of books on digital photography and imaging technology, and the originator of
popular series like David Busch’s Pro Secrets and David Busch’s Quick Snap Guides. He
has written fifteen hugely successful guidebooks for Canon digital camera models,
including all-time #1 bestsellers for many of them, additional user guides for other cam-
era models, as well as many popular books devoted to dSLRs, including Mastering
Digital SLR Photography, Third Edition and Digital SLR Pro Secrets. As a roving photo-
journalist for more than 20 years, he illustrated his books, magazine articles, and news-
paper reports with award-winning images. He’s operated his own commercial studio,
suffocated in formal dress while shooting weddings-for-hire, and shot sports for a daily
newspaper and upstate New York college. His photos and articles have been published
in Popular Photography & Imaging, The Rangefinder, The Professional Photographer, and
hundreds of other publications. He’s also reviewed dozens of digital cameras for CNet
and Computer Shopper.
When About.com named its top five books on Beginning Digital Photography, debut-
ing at the #1 and #2 slots were Busch’s Digital Photography All-In-One Desk Reference
for Dummies and Mastering Digital Photography. During the past year, he’s had as many
as five of his books listed in the Top 20 of Amazon.com’s Digital Photography Bestseller
list—simultaneously! Busch’s 150 other books published since 1983 include bestsellers
like David Busch’s Quick Snap Guide to Using Digital SLR Lenses. His advice has been
featured on National Public Radio’s All Tech Considered.
Busch is a member of the Cleveland Photographic Society (www.clevelandphoto.org),
which has operated continuously since 1887.
Visit his website at http://www.dslrguides.com/blog.
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
PART I: GETTING STARTED WITH
YOUR CANON EOS REBEL T3I/600D
Chapter 1
Canon EOS Rebel T3i/600D: Thinking
Outside of the Box 5
First Things First. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Initial Set-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Battery Included . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Final Steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Chapter 2
Canon EOS Rebel T3i/600D Quick Start 21
Selecting a Shooting Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Choosing a Metering Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Choosing a Focus Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Selecting a Focus Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Other Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Adjusting White Balance and ISO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Using the Self-Timer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Using the Built-in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
vi David Busch’s Canon EOS Rebel T3i/600D Guide to Digital SLR Photography
Taking a Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Reviewing the Images You’ve Taken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Cruising Through Index Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Transferring Photos to Your Computer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Chapter 3
Canon EOS Rebel T3i/600D Roadmap 39
Front View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
The Canon EOS Rebel T3i’s Business End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Jumping Around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Going Topside. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Underneath Your Rebel T3i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Lens Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
LCD Panel Readouts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Looking Inside the Viewfinder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
PART II: BEYOND THE BASICS
Chapter 4
Understanding Exposure 63
Getting a Handle on Exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
How the Rebel T3i Calculates Exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Correctly Exposed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Overexposed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Underexposed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Choosing a Metering Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Choosing an Exposure Method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Basic Zone Exposure Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
A-DEP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Aperture-Priority. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Shutter-Priority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Program Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Making EV Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Manual Exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Contents vii
Adjusting Exposure with ISO Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Bracketing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Bracketing and Merge to HDR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Dealing with Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Fixing Exposures with Histograms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Basic Zone Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
That Quick Control Screen Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Chapter 5
Mastering the Mysteries of Autofocus 103
How Focus Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Phase Detection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Cross-Type Focus Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Contrast Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Focus Modes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Adding Circles of Confusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Making Sense of Sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Your Autofocus Mode Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Setting AF Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Chapter 6
Live View and Movies 117
Working with Live View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Live View Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Enabling Live View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Activating Live View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Focusing in Live View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Using Simulated Exposure/Final Image Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Quick Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Shooting Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Resolution and Frame Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Movie Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Capturing Video/Sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Video Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Playback and Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
viii David Busch’s Canon EOS Rebel T3i/600D Guide to Digital SLR Photography
Tips for Shooting Better Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Make a Shooting Script. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Use Storyboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Storytelling in Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Lighting for Video. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Tips for Better Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Chapter 7
Advanced Shooting 149
Continuous Shooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
More Exposure Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
A Tiny Slice of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Working with Short Exposures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Long Exposures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Three Ways to Take Long Exposures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Working with Long Exposures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Delayed Exposures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Self-Timer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Time-Lapse/Interval Photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
WiFi and Geotagging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Focus Stacking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
PART III: ADVANCED TOOLS
Chapter 8
Customizing with the Shooting and
Playback Menus 171
Anatomy of the Rebel T3i’s Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Shooting 1, 2, 3, & 4 Menu Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Quality Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Beep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Release Shutter Without Card. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Image Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Peripheral Illumination Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Red-Eye Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Contents ix
Flash Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Exposure Compensation/Automatic Exposure Bracketing. . . . . . . . . 191
Auto Lighting Optimizer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Metering Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Custom White Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
White Balance Shift and Bracketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Color Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Picture Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Dust Delete Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
ISO Auto. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Live View Shooting Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Playback 1 & 2 Menu Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Protect Images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Rotate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Erase Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Print Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Creative Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Resize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Histogram. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Image Jump with Main Dial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Slide Show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Rating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Bass Boost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Ctrl over HDMI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Chapter 9
Customizing with Set-up and My Menus 229
Set-up 1, 2, and 3 Menu Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Auto Power Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Auto Rotate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
File Numbering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Select Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Screen Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Eye-Fi Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
LCD Brightness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
LCD Off/On Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236