Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda

New fredmiranda.com Mobile Site

New Feature: SMS Notification alert

New Feature: Buy & Sell Watchlist

FM Forums | Canon Forum | Join Upload & Sell

Archive 2022 · Low End Ergonomics

tsangc
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Low End Ergonomics

I shot a charity event for the first time in two and a half years this Friday. I used to use a pair of 5D's for this type of project, usually a 24-70mm on one for two up shots on guests and group shots and a 70-200mm to pick out individual candids and speakers. But a couple of years ago I bought an EOS RP which is brilliant for this function, especially with EyeAF detection. It's also a lot lighter than the 5D series.

Outdoors, I use a Speedlite 270EX II mounted on the top of my wide camera body to add a bit of fill flash. It's just enough to pop a bit of light into eye sockets and overpower bright light if I'm backlit. I dial it back about 1/3 to 2/3rd of a stop to make it less obvious.

I swear I spent ten minutes trying to find the FEC option on the RP. On the 5D previously and the 7D2 I had there on Friday, there's a dedicated FEC button label on the ISO hard button around the top LCD screen. But I absolutely could not find it at all on the RP that day...sat there like an idiot, going around and around in a circle trying to find the menu or screen which had FEC. Is it the setup menu? Shooting menu?

I had started to doubt the RP had FEC, despite having used it several times before, when I found it on that Info status menu. Of course hidden by the fact despite it acts similar to exposure compensation, doesn't have the little left/right stop scale and is hidden by the Q setting modality toggle.

There's some days when you realize, there's a reason why the nicer bodies are setup that way for working photographers.

Sep 18, 2022 at 09:19 PM

EB-1
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Low End Ergonomics

One of the serious limitations in the MILS is that most bodies are so small there are not enough buttons and displays.

You may be able to assign it some button; at least there are several customization options in the R5.

EBH

Sep 18, 2022 at 11:20 PM

AmbientMike
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Low End Ergonomics

Funny, it took me minute or 2 to find FEC on a rebel today. I didn't have my manual flash so I used pop up flash. Easy to get to using Q button, though. You might try Q button on the RP.

Sep 18, 2022 at 11:25 PM

garyvot
Online
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Low End Ergonomics

tsangc wrote:
Outdoors, I use a Speedlite 270EX II mounted on the top of my wide camera body to add a bit of fill flash. It's just enough to pop a bit of light into eye sockets and overpower bright light if I'm backlit. I dial it back about 1/3 to 2/3rd of a stop to make it less obvious.

I use flash much the same way as you do...

Not an RP user, but IIRC, the 6D didn't have a dedicated FEC button either... I programmed mine to the Set button back in the day. Worked well for me.

Sep 18, 2022 at 11:53 PM

Milan Hutera
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Low End Ergonomics

Having a button for a function you use is certainly nice, but so is doing your homework how to find and access the functions you know you'll need, especially on a paid gig and after such a long time.

Just my 2 eurocents...

Sep 19, 2022 at 02:22 AM

Z250SA
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Low End Ergonomics

Milan Hutera wrote:
Having a button for a function you use is certainly nice, but so is doing your homework how to find and access the functions you know you'll need, especially on a paid gig and after such a long time.

Just my 2 eurocents...

Well, you are of course right, but few of us are perfect... My first response to FEC was Fecal Escherichia Coli. Without further digging into it I guess on Flash Exposure Compensation, but who knows. Federal Economic Constraints? For Ever Canon?

Sep 19, 2022 at 07:12 AM

gdanmitchell
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Low End Ergonomics

All designs have pluses and minuses, and what works for one person in one situation will be different from what another photographer likes in different circumstances. However...

... your post brings up one of the things that I like about my Fujifilm system (which I use along with my Canon system), namely that it has dedicated manual controls for just about everything: aperture rings, EC knobs, shutter speed knob, ISO control, etc.

Dan

Sep 19, 2022 at 08:38 AM

Z250SA
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Low End Ergonomics

I use a R5-tele and RP-wide with my pet solutions on C1 or C2. But when I at rare random intervals need something different I usually, sad enough, find myself going through the second half of my Preferred Curses before: Ahhh! Touchscreen!! Makes me irrevocably an Old Fart. That was the sad part.

If I would design cameras I would definitely use the same general arrangement on all bodies and menus. Works pretty well on humans too, The Crown of Creation or the pinnacle of evolution depending on view, so why not?

Sep 19, 2022 at 12:11 PM

Milan Hutera
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Low End Ergonomics

Z250SA wrote:
Well, you are of course right, but few of us are perfect... My first response to FEC was Fecal Escherichia Coli. Without further digging into it I guess on Flash Exposure Compensation, but who knows. Federal Economic Constraints? For Ever Canon?

It's not about being perfect. Just being ready to do the job. It's simple as that.

Sep 19, 2022 at 12:14 PM

Z250SA
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Low End Ergonomics

Milan Hutera wrote:
It's not about being perfect. Just being ready to do the job. It's simple as that.

Yes, I agree 100%. But when you, ten, twenty, thirty years into the future reach the Old Fart age, you will find that despite doing your best most of your professional time, you have made some mistakes, many of them stupid, many of them bad enough to affect your work. Unavoidable. Is it that bloody Heisenberg´s principle now again?

Sep 19, 2022 at 12:37 PM

AmbientMike
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Low End Ergonomics

tsangc wrote:
I shot a charity event for the first time in two and a half years this Friday. I used to use a pair of 5D's for this type of project, usually a 24-70mm on one for two up shots on guests and group shots and a 70-200mm to pick out individual candids and speakers. But a couple of years ago I bought an EOS RP which is brilliant for this function, especially with EyeAF detection. It's also a lot lighter than the 5D series.

Outdoors, I use a Speedlite 270EX II mounted on the top of my wide camera body to...Show more →

Have you considered a cord? Really glad the keh salesman told me about an older EX series + cord instead of the 220EX I called to order. Really nice to be able to bounce as well as get the flash higher to eliminate shadows.

Sep 19, 2022 at 12:47 PM

tsangc
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Low End Ergonomics

Milan is correct, I probably should have looked it up ahead of time. I don't do this for a living, but I did actually sit down with each body and get them ready the night before, including setting the AF on my 7D2 and turning off the JPEG recording to second slot. I even put together a little bag of extras including extra charged LP-E17s for the RP and extra CFs for the 7D2.

The FEC didn't occur to me until the day of when I actually attached the flash on top of the RP.

As for using a cord/strobeframe, one of the things I like about the 270EX is that it's so low profile.* One thing that drives me nuts is how awkward a 580EX is when the camera is over your shoulder hanging. In the situations which I want to use a bounce in a darker room, I've actually gone to the effort of hanging remote 580EXs to trigger using an ST-E2.

* this actually brings up a second problem which is I think if it was darker, I'd probably see the flash not clearing over the hood completely. But it's outdoors and most people's faces are in the top third

Sep 19, 2022 at 11:15 PM

tsangc
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Low End Ergonomics

gdanmitchell wrote:
All designs have pluses and minuses, and what works for one person in one situation will be different from what another photographer likes in different circumstances. However...

... your post brings up one of the things that I like about my Fujifilm system (which I use along with my Canon system), namely that it has dedicated manual controls for just about everything: aperture rings, EC knobs, shutter speed knob, ISO control, etc.

Dan

Surprisingly the RP actually has most of these things with a manual control--and with the Control Ring adapter, you can assign one more (mine is set to ISO). I guess FEC didn't make the cut

I think the touchscreen-ification of devices comes down to three things: Cost, flexibility and science fiction. The first is fairly obvious--hard switches cost money. I think that's one of the things in the RP or SL series, to save part cost. The second, flexibility, is a double edged sword--you can reconfigure and modify menus, but at the cost of losing discoverability and recall, especially if you create modalities, eg you don't get this option if you are in this mode.

The last one though...drives me nuts. I think a lot of engineers and programmers grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and as a result, assume a touch screen is the correct interface for every scenario. We're seeing it now with voice recognition and control in the past five years too. Sometimes you find a system that has a touch or voice UI which has no business being that way.

I'm told aircraft cockpits specifically have switches for every discrete function to optimize crew performance. eg the engine fire suppression button is there on the control panel, it doesn't disappear on Thursdays, got the latest IOS update, or if the airplane is in Aperture Priority mode.

I find that Canon has tried this on the 1, 5 and 7 series bodies too. There's dedicated buttons for a good number of functions. It's just the low end bodies which they've decided to hide functions like FEC or submerge deeper functions like AF mode into a screen toggle. It's not to say a touch screen is completely bad--the touch to focus/give EyeAF a hint mode is brilliant--it's just there's so many UI modes and menus with supersets and subsets of different functions.

Sep 19, 2022 at 11:31 PM

koenkooi
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Low End Ergonomics

On the low end bodies you trade extra dials for the 'print' and 'rate' buttons.

Sep 20, 2022 at 01:06 AM

Z250SA
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Low End Ergonomics

koenkooi wrote:
On the low end bodies you trade extra dials for the 'print' and 'rate' buttons.

What´s this??!! Inspired by that post I just checked and discovered that my "grossly overexpensive" R10 has neither.

Sep 20, 2022 at 04:03 AM

tsangc
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Low End Ergonomics

Thankfully the print button disappeared several bodies ago, but the Rate button is actually useful, tagging images for ingest and editing.

Sep 20, 2022 at 08:30 AM

Gochugogi
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Low End Ergonomics

koenkooi wrote:
On the low end bodies you trade extra dials for the 'print' and 'rate' buttons.

Yeah, I recall that from back in the day. Good laughs from yesteryear.

Sep 20, 2022 at 01:14 PM

amacal1
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Low End Ergonomics

tsangc wrote:
Thankfully the print button disappeared several bodies ago, but the Rate button is actually useful, tagging images for ingest and editing.

The much-maligned multi-touch bar on the R, I currently have mine configured for rating images.

Sep 20, 2022 at 05:06 PM


FM Forums \| Canon Forum \| Join Upload & Sell

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.