1dx II - is it possible to map a button to a menu item?

[luckydude]

I shoot sports semi-pro and the boss wants me to deliver him a card full of keepers, no duds.
I just got the 1dx and found the cropping function in the menu. It's awesome when you are going
through your images, find that perfect shot but it's not zoomed in enough, the crop function really
makes that shot pop.

It's so useful that I'd like to map menu->play->cropping to some button on the camera but I have
not figured out if that is possible. Seems like it would be useful for lots of stuff.

If it is not possible, it could be, it's just software/firmware, Canon could add this feature. Is there a
process for suggesting such a thing to Canon?

 

[Orangutan]

deliver him a card full of keepers, no duds

The best way to do this is to take no risks. No duds == no experimentation; this leads to boring photos. I can't imagine that even top-end pros have could deliver a card with no duds.

Are you sure the boss isn't a dud?

 

[luckydude]

deliver him a card full of keepers, no duds

The best way to do this is to take no risks. No duds == no experimentation; this leads to boring photos. I can't imagine that even top-end pros have could deliver a card with no duds.

Are you sure the boss isn't a dud?

The boss is the boss. It's mostly high school hockey, there is some men's stuff too, and some pro stuff. But the money makers are the kids, the younger they are the more the mom's love their little warriors going into battle.

By "no duds" what he means is "when play is stopped look through your shots and delete the duds". Because their work flow is you give them a card and whatever is on it goes up on the screens where the moms look. Duds don't sell, and this is a business, it's all about sales.

Hence my interest in the in camera crop. A cropped shot that shows little johnny scoring a goal, clearly, sells.

 

[Orangutan]

deliver him a card full of keepers, no duds

The best way to do this is to take no risks. No duds == no experimentation; this leads to boring photos. I can't imagine that even top-end pros have could deliver a card with no duds.

Are you sure the boss isn't a dud?

The boss is the boss. It's mostly high school hockey, there is some men's stuff too, and some pro stuff. But the money makers are the kids, the younger they are the more the mom's love their little warriors going into battle.

By "no duds" what he means is "when play is stopped look through your shots and delete the duds". Because their work flow is you give them a card and whatever is on it goes up on the screens where the moms look. Duds don't sell, and this is a business, it's all about sales.

Hence my interest in the in camera crop. A cropped shot that shows little johnny scoring a goal, clearly, sells.

Ah, that makes sense, you want to make the sale before they leave the venue.

 

[Jack Douglas]

I get the impression that Canon has just not bothered with some programmability because they just don't perceive it's useful, so some way of providing the feedback might produce results but I don't know how other than I have posed questions to the service department and gotten replies.

Jack

 

[tarntyke]

On my 5dsr it is not possible to program cropping to a single button. You can assign it to a custom menu though. Maybe this also applies to the 1dx2. The manual shows all options for ressigning buttons under custom control menu. Cropping does not appear under any of them nor does free choice. So for 5dsr assigning cropping to a single button is impossible.

 

[Gregoryear]

Have you tried to add the function to my favourites menu?

 

[zim]

Would tethering to a small laptop or tablet be an option and do your culling/cropping on that as you go? Not sure how visible the screen would be though in daylight.

 

[IglooEater]

None of my beeswax I guess, but I'd be sending them via wireless to lightroom or photo mechanic as you shoot, since your cropping and triage is probably faster done on a laptop anyways. then just plug the laptop into the screen. It would be a big workflow change, but maybe for the better.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

You can delete the duds or conversely select the keepers (as best you can determine) and transfer them or give the card to a person who might perform minor edits before printing them. This is how the process is intended to work. I do not think that there will be many images that would not be improved by minor editing such as straightening, adjusting exposure, and cropping. You can do this individually in camera, but for a large number of images, it will take a lot of time.

You need to review the proper processing flow with your boss, once a image is selected for printing, minor processing can be done, or he can do them all.

I have a hard time believing that I could edit images well enough on the rear LCD to claim them as perfect except for a small number at a time, and even then, there would be duds when viewed on a large screen.

 

[Mikehit]

What you need to agree with him is timelines. How long after the game is over is he expecting you to deliver the CF card? If it is immediately afterwards then you have to work out if you have any time for editing at all.

If you do have time then I agree with iglooeater - if you foresee cropping a lot of images I think it would be best and quickest done on a laptop. Something like Canon's own DPP, or things like Photomechanic or Breeezebrowser will flick through images very quickly (quicker than LR) and you can do basic editing and I presume you could even do cropping with the images still on the CF card which will save you download time.

The problem is who decides what is a 'keeper'? If the picture is of little Harry scoring the winning goal, then Mum will not care about the quality or if it needs cropping.
If the definition of 'keeper' is simply infocus/out of focus, or making sure no limbs are missing off the edge of the frame then that is easy. His definition of 'keeper' may differ to yours - and that is the role of the boss. Make damned sure you know what he means.

 

[DaveGershon]

You can delete the duds or conversely select the keepers (as best you can determine) and transfer them or give the card to a person who might perform minor edits before printing them. This is how the process is intended to work. I do not think that there will be many images that would not be improved by minor editing such as straightening, adjusting exposure, and cropping. You can do this individually in camera, but for a large number of images, it will take a lot of time.

You need to review the proper processing flow with your boss, once a image is selected for printing, minor processing can be done, or he can do them all.

I have a hard time believing that I could edit images well enough on the rear LCD to claim them as perfect except for a small number at a time, and even then, there would be duds when viewed on a large screen.

I agree. The rear LCD is good but not big enough for much editing.

 

[luckydude]

Hi, just getting back to this.

So "keeper" is in focus, ideally you can see the kids face, ideally it's a somewhat interesting shot (stick flex is cool, kid hustling is cool) but even boring shots are considered keepers. Shots of the kids back, chopped off head, etc, not so much.

There is zero time for editting, nor is there any budget for that. That's just the reality of this sort of "pro" photography. These shots aren't going into some glossy publication, they are sold as a print or they are worthless. This is a crappy place to make money, the photographers are paid $25/hour 1099 money and are expected to produce a keeper every 8 seconds of shooting and that includes the time to delete the duds (I'm not that good, I think my best rate is about one shot every 17 seconds, maybe I've done better but the actual pros in this niche market are twice as fast as I am. I was talking to one about the 8 second thing and he said it's rare that he uses the LCD, he knows after the shot if it is good or bad, so it's shoot, shoot, delete, shoot, shoot ...).

This is a pretty finely tuned business, they do make money at it (it costs them about $8000 for the right to be there selling pics and they have to pay for travel and pay the people at the table and the photographers, tournaments are usually 3 days, run 18 hours, they run 3-4 photographers and 2 people at the table selling, so that's maybe another $8000 before they turn a profit). They aren't making a lot of money. In the cell phone enabled world one of their biggest challenges is getting people to not take pictures of the pictures with a cell phone.

So anyhoo, having to do the extra step through the menus is a pain. I do it, but it messes with my flow a bit.

 

[Jack Douglas]

After reading this maybe unluckydude is more appropriate!

If your last menu access was "cropping" then a press of the menu button takes you there and a press of the set button starts the cropping process - seems almost instantaneous to me

I'm finding my menu and programmable buttons is resulting in me using the Q button much less. The 1DX2 is a big step up from my 6D

Jack

 

[luckydude]

After reading this maybe unluckydude is more appropriate!

If your last menu access was "cropping" then a press of the menu button takes you there and a press of the set button starts the cropping process - seems almost instantaneous to me

I'm finding my menu and programmable buttons is resulting in me using the Q button much less. The 1DX2 is a big step up from my 6D

Jack

Yeah, you are right about last menu access. For reasons I can't explain well I don't like leaving the cropped as the last menu access, I want that to be the folder selection. The pros want each game in its own folder and if I don't leave the menu on that I forget to create a new folder. Weird, I know, but once you get in the penalty box and start shooting you are pretty darn focussed on that, you have to be.

If I could map a button to "create new folder and switch to it" then I'd leave the cropped as the last menu access.

What I'd really like is a scripting interface that let me program the darn thing (I'm a programmer by training). I suppose I could try and hack one into magic lantern but I'm not ready to drop that firmware onto my new 1dx2. Maybe some day.

Oh, and while working for the hockey guys makes me seem like unluckydude, I've got a pile of canon stuff and I enjoy having to use it. It's very niche, but it's a challenge and I like a challenge. Keeps me learning and I strongly suspect that when I stop learning I'll start dieing.