Canon 400D: tips for using your digital camera

jmeyer | Photography Tips | 30/09/2012 06:00am

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So you think you know how to use your Canon 400D? Like many of us, you may have a DSLR or compact system camera but tend to use only a handful of your its features.

In our ongoing review of some of the more popular current and ‘out of date’ Canon cameras, we want to help you better harness the creative potential of your camera.

Call them camera tips, or call it a user’s guide to your favourite Canon camera. The advice below comes from experts who have used the Canon 400D and know this DSLR inside and out.

If you have your own Canon 400D tips you’d like to share, post them in the comments below. What we want to build is an ever-growing user’s guide for the Canon 400D that comes not from a press release or a lab test, but from the photographers who shoot with this DSLR (read more DSLR tips or read about another Canon DSLR).

We want to inspire you to twist the mode dial and move beyond your favourite settings and functions and get more out of your Canon 400D starting today!

Tip 1 Shorter self-timer 
Press the button shown below to access the self-timer function – it’s a standard 10 seconds on the 400D. For a shorter, two-second self-timer, you need to activate the Mirror Lock-up function first (Custom Function VII).

Tip 2 Modelling flash 
When you have a Speedlite attached to the 400D, the depth of field preview button on the front of the camera becomes a flash modelling trigger; press it, and the flash pulses rapidly so that you can assess where shadows will fall.

Tip 3 Picture Styles 
You can download more Picture Styles to use in your 400D (or in Canon’s Digital Photo Professional software that came with your camera). Head to Canon’s website for the full set.

Tip 4 Extended compensation 
You can set +/–2 stops of exposure compensation via the dedicated button. If this isn’t enough, take a meter reading, then switch to Manual mode and apply compensation by changing the aperture/shutter speed.

Tip 5 Auto Depth AE
In A-DEP mode, the camera selects the correct aperture setting to maximise the depth of field – but note that this won’t work if you’re using flash. Attach a Speedlite, or use the pop-up flash, and the camera will default to Program mode.