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10 Second Tips:

IS and tripods

Although the recent IS lenses suggest you can leave the Image Stabiliser turned on when attached to a tripod without adversely affecting the results, our experience shows that if are confident your tripod is steady, you're better off turning the IS system off in order to obtain sharper results.

Don't scare your subjects

By default, EOS cameras have focus beep enabled. In quiet situations like churches or when photographing wildlife, make sure you disable it in the first menu tab to avoid ruining the ceremony or scaring away your subjects.

Shutter speed and camera shake

To avoid camera shake in your images without using IS, make sure you use a shutter speed no slower than the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens you're using. For example with a 200mm lens, use a shutter speed no slower than 1/200sec.

Camera orientation for HD Movies

When shooting movies on any of the EOS models that feature HD movie shooting, make sure you keep the camera in landscape orientation rather than being tempted to shoot in portrait orientation. Reason? It's pretty hard to turn your TV on its side!

Don't shoot without a card

Make sure to switch off the 'instore demo mode' of your EOS by setting it to not shoot unless a memory card is in the camera. It's in the red tabbed menus on recent cameras under "Shoot w/o card". Simply make sure it is set to "disable".

Burst rate and Noise Reduction

If you're planning to shoot burst sequences at high ISO settings, make sure you turn off the High ISO noise reduction setting in the custom functions. Leaving it on will dramatically reduce the burst capacity on some cameras. On the EOS-1D Mark IV, only 'Strong' will reduce the burst rate.

Avoiding camera shake

Pixels in digital cameras are smaller than the grain on film emulsion. For this reason, any subject motion is more likely to record as image blur at a given shutter speed. To avoid this, shoot at a faster shutter speed than you would have done with film.