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Bottom & Front of Camera

Lesson 11 from: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Fast Start

John Greengo

Bottom & Front of Camera

Lesson 11 from: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Fast Start

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

11. Bottom & Front of Camera

The bottom and front of the camera are often overlooked in most guides -- but that's where features like the depth of field preview and the option to add an accessory to plug the camera in the wall to shoot time-lapses for days are hiding.

Lesson Info

Bottom & Front of Camera

Under the bottom of the camera, you'll have your serial numbers, record that for insurance purposes. It has a standard tripod socket, quarter 20 threads on it for standard accessories. There's a little alignment hole which can be used with custom-made devices or the vertical grip, the BG-E20 which sells for around $350. And this is something I highly recommend for people who do a lot of shooting of verticals or do a lot of people photography, whether it's sports or portrait photography, it's a more comfortable position for holding the camera. This also holds two batteries in it so that you're less likely to need to change batteries on it. It does make your camera bigger so I don't like it for travel photography, so it really depends on how you use your camera, also good for people who have big hands, just gives you a bigger grip on the camera. We have our battery compartment, the standard battery has been the same since the Mark Two version of this camera so luckily Canon has kept that...

same battery around for awhile, comes with a travel charger. If you want, you can get a car charger for it, that's gonna sell for an extra $150 bucks or so. Then there is a little tiny rubber door, if you need to have constant power to your camera. If you were using your camera for scientific reasons or you're in a studio doing a time laps over multiple days and you didn't wanna deal with changing batteries, you just want to plug your camera into the wall, you can buy the DR-E6 and the AC-E6N and combined that's gonna sell for around $150 bucks and you can power your camera continuously without a batter at all in there so you're, but you need to be within reach of a wall outlet in order to do that. Looking around at the front of the camera, well we can't quite see the sensor but it is a 30-megapixel sensor, full-frame sensor, CMOS using a DIGIC six processor. Buried up on the top of the camera is the GPS antenna, we'll be talking more about those functions in the second half of the class. The mono microphone, those little holes over on the right-hand side. There's a little port on the front, this used to be on the side of the cameras, this is the remote terminal for the remote switch, so if you want a cable release for triggering your camera without touching the camera, you can get one of these two. Now on previous versions of the 5D, you had to get the timer remote controller if you wanted to shoot time lapse or long-bulb exposures but that's no longer necessary on this camera because those are built into the menu functions of the camera so my guess is that Canon is gonna be selling a lot more of the remote switches and lesser of the timer remotes because you just don't need those extra features in this camera 'cause they're built into the camera. And I have found myself using this less and less because the camera has those built in features. I also use the two-second self timer when I'm on a tripod but there is from time to time I'm on a tripod and I wanna trigger the exact timing of the shot and that's when the cable release really comes in handy is when you wanna be very precise and exact about that. Next up is a depth of field preview button. When you press this, it will stop the lens down to its working aperture so if you have it set at F-16 or F-22, it's gonna show you how much depth of field you are getting in that particular photo. Now, with a digital camera you can just shoot a photo and look at it on the back of the camera. But sometimes it's very bright outside and it's hard to get a good view of the screen and so this is still a handy technique often used by landscape photographers. We have a self-timer light which will blink and let you know that the picture is gonna be taken when it goes solid for the last two seconds during that timer setting. There is the remote control sensor so if you do wanna get the RC-6 which sells for about $20, it's a great way for triggering the camera but you do need to be pretty close to the camera so it's not gonna work at great distances and it's an infrared sensor so it doesn't work real well in bright sunshine so don't expect to put your camera on one side of the football field and be on the other side and trigger your camera with this, that's just way too far. The EF lens mount is that little red dot that you'll match up when mounting the lens. There's the lens release and then there's a lens locking pin and then you'll notice also on the lens there are contacts and I feel this is redundant and ridiculous but I'm gonna do it anyway, I'm gonna show you how to mount a lens on a camera, and you generally want to leave your camera exposed for the least amount of time possible and so just looking at the red dots, it does make it pretty easy when mounting things up and you wanna wait for that click 'cause that's where you know that things, you can turn it and it's there, it's on the camera but it hasn't clicked, so just make sure you get the click. Then you wanna make sure that nothing is obstructing or interfering with these contacts in here to get dirty and that may cause a miscommunication. I'm trying to remember if I had a problem on this camera but I know on some other cameras I've mounted the camera up and I've got an error message in the top, and generally the problem, the way to solve the problem is just release it and remount it like that.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Canon 5D Mark IV Recommended Settings

Ratings and Reviews

r_peddle
 

John is such a fabulous educator. Well spoken, knowledgeable and he presents with such clarity and easy, it makes listening that much more enjoyable. I would highly recommend taking this class and any of his classes dealing with photography. HE simplifies the menu system and buttons on the camera in this course that would be painstakingly long if you tried it on your own. I have watched this video 2-3 times know and each time I go back, I learn a little more. Being able to drop into any of the main topics with easy, not having to watch and search for your desired info is so convenient. I will never buy another camera without checking to see if John has completed a review on it........I trust his opinion. Thanks John......I am a fan.

Ralph Somma
 

I was reluctant to purchase this course because I already have the Instruction Manual that came with the 5D Mark IV and am committed to reading it in it's entirely. Nevertheless, after watching a preview of the course, I decide to buy it so I could view it at my leisure, pause and rewind it as needed. I am so glad I did. John Greengo's teaching method is clear and concise. He presents the material in a way that makes it interesting and enjoyable to learn. His effective use of visuals and demonstrations makes understanding every important function of the 5D Mark IV a breeze. I look forward to implementing what I've learned, his recommendations and tweaking the camera's settings to suit my own needs and preferences. Now as I trudge through all 600+ pages of the manual, I'm confident I will more easily grasp the camera's 100+ settings and can always refer back to the course if necessary.

Teri
 

First I have to say that I wanted this camera before it was even released. I had taken some of John's fast start courses and I had some questions regarding this camera vs. the 5D mark III and 7D mark II that I was using at that time. I emailed John and got an "out of office/out on location response". I put it out of my mind assuming that when John Greengo was back in the office, he'd have hundreds of emails waiting and my little question would get lost in the shuffle. I was delighted to receive a response a few weeks later. I was even more delighted when he released this fast start course. I did end up buying the 5D mark IV (love it) and had a pretty good handle on using it. This class opened up some new doors in how to use all of the features and customize things to suit my needs. I can never recommend John's classes enough. He explains things in an easy yet technical way that is useful to both beginners and seasoned photographers!

Student Work

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