Professionally I'm a photojournalist that primarily covers breaking news, but I also do a lot of landscape and wildlife photography in my free time for fun. Most of my custom control choices come from what I need the camera to do on a work assignment since I really don't have time to dig in a menu.
Custom Buttons
- Shutter button: Default, Metering and AF start
- Video button: Default, video start
- Mode button: Default, mode
- AF-ON: AF-off, I've always done this, I know people like back-button focus, but I photograph a lot of sudden, unexpected action at breaking news and I like knowing that the shutter is always linked to autofocusing, so that I don't end up hitting the shutter before focusing. Instead of back-button focus, I use the AF-ON button to turn off focus for times when I need a similar autofocus stop that you'd get using backbutton focus on a shot.
- AE Lock: Cropping/aspect ratio, I love that this makes it as easy as pressing a button to get the 17 megapixel 1.6x digital teleconverter mode. I've loved using the crop mode on wildlife so far, and setting it to a button makes it easier to switch in a second if the subject gets closer. Lot easier than digging through a menu.
- AF point button: Drive mode, with the different restrictions on FPS and bit-rate in drive modes in the R5 I find myself changing the drive more often, so I wanted a button dedicated to that.
- DOF preview button: One-Shot / Servo AF, I've always had this set like this on all of my Canon cameras. There's just certain situations where you want the confirmation of knowing your focus is locked, and this is a lot quicker for sudden situations where servo focus won't work. Normally, on other cameras, I have it only use one-shot when it's held down, but the R5 doesn't offer the condition that it only switches when the button is held, unfortunately. That just means I have to remember to click it twice to get back to Servo focus.
- Lens: Default, AF stop
- My favorite: M-FN Button: Switch to Custom Shooting Mode, set to C1 only, other C modes turned off. C1: Shutter Priority, 1/1000th, 12 FPS, Spot meter, auto ISO. Again photographing breaking news means things can go very badly in an instant. I like this button as my "emergency" button, all I have to do is hit M-FN and I instantly know I'll have a high enough shutter speed and automatic exposure to get an image of whatever is in front of the camera. That gives me more freedom to use slower shutter speeds when there's not much going on, knowing that in an instant I can have the camera properly exposed at 1/1000th if something blows up.
- LCD panel button: LCD illumination, I switched it to this because I never use the secondary display it offers by default, and this makes the button act more like the LCD light button on DSLRS.
- SET: ISO, hold button turn shutter, I've always done this on all of my Canon cameras, I always hated having to fish for the ISO button to change ISO, so this makes it a lot faster to do. I know the R5 has a dial just for ISO now, but I've left this button as ISO because it's stuck in my muscle memory and I find myself doing this instinctively anyway. If I get used to the dial, this might find a new use.
- Multicontroller, AF point selection
Custom Dials
- Main dial, default, Shutter
- Top dial(Quick Control Dial 2), ISO speed
- Rear dial(Quick Control Dial 1), Aperture setting
- Lens Control Wheel: Select AF method, this has been a new favorite of mine. I love the Subject detection tracking autofocus mode on the R5, it works awesome and finds eyes/people/birds/everything very well and lets me reframe as much as I want, or lets a bird fly through the frame while being tracked. The issue is, sometimes this mode gets wonky in weird conditions, and if you change to One-Shot focus, it uses the whole sensor as an automatic detect one-shot mode. That's super annoying, I wish it was still based off of your initial focus point for one-shot. I don't have time when I'm taking a photo to change focus settings to switch to one-shot mode, so the moment I need one-shot or the tracking focus isn't working well, I can quickly hit the dial on the lens left or right and switch between the AF point focus or tracking focus. I disabled most of the AF modes except subject detection, default point, and expanded point focus, which makes it even easier to switch. I'll also add that the nice thing with the direct method is that it has "hard stops" on the left and right ends of the settings list, so if I roll the wheel left it'll always stop at AF tracking, and if I roll the wheel right it'll always stop at expanded AF point. Super intuitive to me and I love this set up a lot.
H-Jones! Can you please explain, step by step, just how to achieve allocation of the C1 customised shooting mode to the Multi-Function button? I have been trying to do this, and failure to achieve it is driving me MAD. (With my old 7D and 400mm telephoto is was able to toggle the mode dial until it stopped - because it could go no further. This could be done without taking my eye off the bird/birds that suddenly, as they often do, provide an opportunity for a shot/shots - if you're fast enough. The 7D enabled my BIF settings to be acquired without taking my eyes off it/them as the camera came up to a shooting position. an't do that - yet - with the R5.....) When I get to the customize buttons, in a bid to set the MF button for that purpose, I get a message at the bottom of the screen that registering for C1-C3 not doable. Please, what am I doing wrong?
