Why does every camera Canon sells not have like... 10 custom settings modes?

[Gavjenks]

As in C1-C3 on the main mode dial. My 6D for instance only has C1-C2, but there is plenty of room on the dial for at least C1-C8 without cramping the letters very much, and there's also room for a larger DIAL too.

I don't understand why 1 versus 2 versus 3 of these are treated as luxury features. It's the exact same software, and a few extra BYTES of memory are all that is needed to add another C mode. That costs Canon absolutely nothing to add.

Which means the only real downside is crowding the dial, but there's plenty of room available to not lead to crowding.



So... why not more C modes? If I had 8 of them, I would almost never have to touch any other settings on my camera ever again, except for the wheel and dial, because I could cover every situation I ever shoot in, the way I like to shoot (action, daylight creative, night creative, portrait, street photography, the settings for my specific studio lighting for portraits and flashes already dialed in for the typical setup, etc.). That would be fantastically convenient.

 

[tirediron]

Since as I far as I know, none of our membership works in Canon's R&D department, you're not likely to get a definitive answer here. I would have to go with my mother's standard answer, "Because!".

 

[o hey tyler]

I personally only use one custom setting. 1/125, f/8, ISO 100. Just for quick strobin'.

 

[Big Mike]

Unless you are shooting a 1Dx....then the answer is that they don't put all the possible features on 'lesser' cameras. I'm not sure how many C modes there on the 1Dx...I'd guess three....and that (plus manual) should be enough.

 

[kathyt]

If you have manual mode what else could you possibly need? Get creative with manual. Do you want your camera to dance and sing too?

 

[Derrel]

Canon is hard at work developing new,exciting, amazing,creative custom exposure modes, like AFM and FTM, as shown in this commercial. (Asian Fish Market mode and Flaming Tire Mode) The first guy shown was using an experimental mode, DORK mode, (Dip$hit On Roof Killed) but it was found to be too dangerous for most users.

 

[TCampbell]

If you buy four 6D bodies then you can have EIGHT modes available to you.

 

[bratkinson]

Yes, a couple of lousy bytes of RAM to store additional Cn settings certainly wouldn't "kill" Canon. But I suspect the marketing and/or design department does not want 'overly complicate' the dial. It may confuse some shooters and may even lose the sale!

 

[imagemaker46]

I hate all the bells and whistles that have been added to camera bodies, I'm just not a technical type and am always looking back and forth through my manual trying to figure out what's what. I've been slowly working on learning more every time I pick the camera up, and cringe when I have to get a new body and start over.

I have to say I miss the old all manual days when the instructions that came with the new body was, "add batteries, add film, take pictures"

 

[DarkShadow]

Canon is hard at work developing new,exciting, amazing,creative custom exposure modes, like AFM and FTM, as shown in this commercial. (Asian Fish Market mode and Flaming Tire Mode) The first guy shown was using an experimental mode, DORK mode, (Dip$hit On Roof Killed) but it was found to be too dangerous for most users.

This!

 

[gsgary]

As in C1-C3 on the main mode dial. My 6D for instance only has C1-C2, but there is plenty of room on the dial for at least C1-C8 without cramping the letters very much, and there's also room for a larger DIAL too.

I don't understand why 1 versus 2 versus 3 of these are treated as luxury features. It's the exact same software, and a few extra BYTES of memory are all that is needed to add another C mode. That costs Canon absolutely nothing to add.

Which means the only real downside is crowding the dial, but there's plenty of room available to not lead to crowding.



So... why not more C modes? If I had 8 of them, I would almost never have to touch any other settings on my camera ever again, except for the wheel and dial, because I could cover every situation I ever shoot in, the way I like to shoot (action, daylight creative, night creative, portrait, street photography, the settings for my specific studio lighting for portraits and flashes already dialed in for the typical setup, etc.). That would be fantastically convenient.

And very LAZY

 

[MarshallG]

I hate all the bells and whistles that have been added to camera bodies, I'm just not a technical type and am always looking back and forth through my manual trying to figure out what's what. I've been slowly working on learning more every time I pick the camera up, and cringe when I have to get a new body and start over.

I have to say I miss the old all manual days when the instructions that came with the new body was, "add batteries, add film, take pictures"

Let me suggest that you're doing it wrong. Just use the camera and forget about all the options. Just take pictures. Then, if you're shooting and you think to yourself, "Gee, I wish I could..." write it down in your notebook and research it here or in the manual.

I'll give you an example: "I wish I could save all of my settings for Sports photography, AND. all my settings for People photography." And it turns out that the C1 and C2 dial settings let me do that.

Another example: "I wish I could use the joystick on my camera to set a focus point," and "I wish I didn't have to move the focus point every time I rotate the camera to portrait orientation."

These aren't things that you need to learn. You aren't going to take worse photos if you don't do this stuff. It's like Dorothy's red shoes... it's there when you need it.

 

[CowgirlMama]

I hate all the bells and whistles that have been added to camera bodies, I'm just not a technical type and am always looking back and forth through my manual trying to figure out what's what. I've been slowly working on learning more every time I pick the camera up, and cringe when I have to get a new body and start over.

I have to say I miss the old all manual days when the instructions that came with the new body was, "add batteries, add film, take pictures"

I'm with you. I like it simple. Supposedly, my 6D does HDR? I don't generally shoot anything that I'd do HDR with, but even if I did, it's easier to just do the bracketing myself, than to dig through menus. And 2 C modes is 2 more than I need. I haven't even looked into how to program them. I mostly shoot outside, so my settings change based on available light and what flash/reflectors I may have at the time. I guess I can see it being useful if you primarily shoot the same situations over and over because you could flip modes, instead of changing settings.

My camera has a lot of settings I don't use. I can't even remember all that this thing can do. I just want it to capture the image, using the settings I told it to. I don't expect it to work wonders and make me an amazing photographer when I'm not.

 

[KmH]

[h=2]Why does every camera Canon sells not have like... 10 custom settings modes?[/h]

Because the vast majority of Canon camera owners never take their camera out of AUTO mode?

 

[ShooterJ]

I haven't found it too difficult to manually set the camera. And I'm just using a t3i.

A photographer told me once, " When you're starting out, the camera can always do more than you can."

I think that's true.. there's a ton of potential built into DSLRs... Personally I love it.. I think camera manufacturers are doing a great job. I can't hold them responsible if a user doesn't understand all the features ... it's their job to deliver, ours to apply it.