New to Canon, 5D to be specific, tips tricks?
Just sold everything from another brand and went to the Canon 5D. 1) is there a better (simpler) way to get to mirror lock up for landscapes? 2) any other tips would be appreciated, favorite picture styles? settings? WB presets-(with my D80 auto -1 or -2) worked well in most situations). Thanks Todd
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On WB: I shoot RAW and use Lightroom for my conversions. Often I leave the WB on auto and use a set of WB presets I have created in Lightroom. I like the Canon WB settings for sun, shade, and cloudy better than the build in Lightroom equivalents so I use develop presets. The sun, shade, cloud and tungsten settings are all good and I try to use them so the LCD preview and histogram are more accurate. I tend to use AWB when shooting with a flash.
On MLU: The delay timer works just like you'd wish with MLU: lifting the mirror when you press the shutter, waiting 2 seconds, tripping the shutter and then dropping the mirror. If you going to be doing a lot of tripod landscape shooting you can set up the C setting like so:
Delay Timer
MLU
ISO 100
Manual (or AV if you prefer) 1/200s at f/11 (that is where diffraction just starts to set in on a 5D)
WB sun
Personally, I just set my camera up that way by hand whenever I have it on a tripod. The camera remembers the last CF you used and mine almost always ends up resting on MLU when I am in the field so setting it doesn't really take that long. In practice, when the light is right for landscape shooting I am not going to be shooting anything else, so I end up turning MLU and the delay timer on once and leaving them that way.
As for picture styles, my camera is permenantly set to Faithful. I regularly use the RGB histogram to see if I am blowing out any of the channels, and keeping the in-camera saturation low makes that judgement more accurate. I do all my saturation and sharpening adjustments in post.
I use the center AF point for 99% of my shooting because it is more accurate than the other 8. The depth of field on the 5D is shallower than what you are used to, so if you like to shoot with fast apertures be careful about how you focus. It took some practice to get the hang of how the AF sensor works, but now I reliably get accurate focus in situations with extremely shallow DoF.
If you take many pictures of people, get a Canon 85mm/1.8. The 5D and the 85/1.8 are a match made in heaven.