Using Custom Modes
Once you’ve got your favourite settings saved into a Custom
Mode, whenever you switch your camera’s mode from say Av
mode over to your new ‘Bird in f light mode’ (selected via the
usual mode-selection dial/button), everything will jump to those
pre-saved defaults, regardless of the settings you’re using at the
time. The camera will then behave exactly as if you’d laboriously
changed to the appropriate camera mode (ie; Tv) dialled in your
settings, and swapped to the right drive mode, focus points, and
tracking focus. If the particular scenario you’re shooting today
requires you to tweak things a little (like overexposing a little
more, or using an even faster shutter speed), then you can just
go ahead and adjust variables as usual, but safe in the knowledge
that when you leave ‘bird in f light mode’ and return to it later,
all the settings will revert to those original, ‘saved’ bird settings.
It’s easy and it really works! ❂
Chris Bray is an award-winning Australian Geographic
photographer whose customers include Canon, GoPro, Lowepro,
National Geographic Traveller, Discovery Channel and more.
Chris runs Chris Bray Photography, now Australia’s largest
photo safari operator leading small groups of photographers to
the world’s most wonderful places including Alaska, Antarctica,
the Amazon, Galapagos, Patagonia, Kenya, Iceland, Greenland,
Tasmania, Kangaroo Island, Christmas Island and more. His
team also run highly successful one-day photography courses at
zoos and botanical gardens all around Australia – check out Chris
Bray’s website http://www.ChrisBray.net for details, and follow him on
Instagram at @ChrisBrayPhotography.AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHY + DIGITAL JULY 2015 AUSTRALIANPHOTOGRAPHY.COM 63
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Saving a custom
mode is simply a
matter of setting
your camera up
how you like, then
going into your
camera’s menu,
finding the ‘user
mode’ or ‘custom
mode’ option, and
then ‘registering’ or
‘saving’ everything
into the camera’s
memory. This
example is on a
Canon EOS-1D X,
which allows you
to save several
different user
modes, so on the
next screen it asks
which slot on which
you can save the
settings, C1 to C3.