Shoot Faster with ‘C’ Mode

If you own a enthusiast or pro level camera body, you’ll find a mode titled ‘C’ on the mode dial. Depending on the camera model, there may be several of these titled ‘C1’, ‘C2’ & so. This mode is known as “Custom Mode/Recall Mode”. Don’t confuse it with “Custom Settings”. This mode is there for users who often need to shoot a particular subject frequently. The gist of this mode is that, it asks users to input their preferred settings & save it, so that the user can recall them anytime in future quickly.

Let me give you an example. I shoot lots of food & still photos, for this I have set the ‘C’ mode on my camera to certain default settings like 2 secs timer, a starting aperture value of f/4, ISO 200 & Shutter-Speed 1/100. So when I need to shoot food, I just select the ‘C’ mode on camera & the camera is ready for shooting. This saves my time as I can concentrate more on the subject I shoot than over the camera. Off-course, the settings you make in this mode can be changed during operation as you normally would.

Let me show you, how to set your settings for this mode. I’ll imagine that I have to shoot a wedding indoors & I’ll have my base settings accordingly.

# First enter the “MANUAL” mode of the camera & make the settings on your camera. These settings need not be absolute correct but thereabouts. Since I want to shoot a wedding indoors, the light will be low. So I select ISO 800, a shutter-speed of 1/100 & aperture f/2.8. I set the Picture Style to ‘Standard’, Metering to Evaluative & Quality to “Small jpeg + Large RAW”.

# Now that I’m happy with my settings, I head over the “Camera User Settings” in the third wrench menu on my Canon EOS 60D. I enter within & select “Register Settings”. It will ask for a confirmation to register camera user settings to “C”. Select OK. It will take a moment to save the settings.

# Now when you turn the model dial to ‘C’, the settings you made will be displayed. You can change them on fly as you’re in field but they will revert back to the once you set(defaults) when you switch off the camera or on the auto power off of the camera.

I absolutely love this custom mode. They really help me in speeding up my shooting. I hope they do the same for you.

 

Record Shell Output to a File

There are times when you need to post the outcome of a particular command(s) from a shell on a forum or somewhere else. It might be for troubleshooting or demonstration. However, copy-paste is not exactly a good option if your shell is filled with tons of information. Not to mention, you would spend a lot of time just selecting the text & then pasting it into a word processor. Wouldn’t life be easy if there would be a script which would gather all the data from a terminal & save it to a file? It does exist.

Before starting to run the command(s) whose output you wish to capture, enter;

$script -a filename

You will get,

[shuttertux@localhost ~]$ script -a filename

Script started, file is filename

[shuttertux@localhost ~]$

Now one can begin entering the required commands. Once done, type;

$exit

You’ll get,

[shuttertux@localhost ~]$ exit

exit

Script done, file is filename

[shuttertux@localhost ~]$

Now you can view the output file simply by,

$cat filename

Wasn’t that easy? Just remember, the output file is saved in your present working directory.

Use Camouflage Technqiue to get Good Wildlife Photographs

Photographing wildlife needs the photographer to approach the subject stealthily. One needs immense patience & good presence of mind to get good photographs of wildlife. Often the birds, animals don’t entertain humans & at times they may even get on defense & counter-attack. Happened to me once. I was in a balcony shooting a small bird perched on a nearby power line. To get closer, I went into the balcony, crouched & just held my hand up. As I fired a shot, another shot the bird got furious & decided to attack the camera however it missed. As I got up to go inside, it again flew furiously just across my face. A split second delay in my reaction would have got me injured near or on my eye. Thankfully I was safe. So the point of telling you this short tale is that one needs to approach the wildlife in a way that it is unaware of you. When you are successful in doing so, you will get good shots as the wildlife won’t be scared or put on a defensive mode.

Do-It-Yourself : Use Gift Wrap Paper as Flash Gel

A flash-gun can do wonders to your photography. Simply using a flash in your photos can elevate them to a new level altogether. However, flash in his primary form is very unattractive & often needs to be used along-with other accessories like reflector, diffuser, flash gels etc to create the desired effect in the photographs. In this article, I’ll talk about flash gels. About creating flash gel for yourself.

Four Tricks to enhance your Canon DSLR Shooting Experience

DSLR cameras offer a flexible shooting experience for a photographer. Photographers can not only attach a host of lenses & accessories to enhance their shooting experience but even customize the camera further from the menus to ensure a rapid shooting experience. Here are some tricks by which you can get most out of your Canon DSLR. These tricks/techniques apply to most of the Canon DSLR cameras but certain might not be available/applicable to some Canon DSLR cameras. Some of the tricks discussed here might even apply to camera of other brands.