Anyone using an R8?

[DavidEccleston]

Interesting that the R8 has a mechanical second curtain shutter, yet they don't use it to protect the sensor when off. I'm going to guess that one was marketing driven, to not make the R8 too appealing.

The only EF-S mode mentions I could find anywhere were all about using the 10-18mm for vlogging. I couldn't find a single still image. I know it's a niche feature, but that was surprising.

I looked up the Fv mode. It's basically you choose one thing, the camera auto selects the other two. So it's 1) Av+Auto Tv/ISO, 2) Tv+Auto Av/ISO, or 3) manual ISO+Auto Av/Tv, with the camera auto selecting every creative option, ie. DoF and motion blur. I'd still prefer to choose the creative parts and let the camera select just the exposure.

Maybe Fv is smarter than the old sports mode which used a fixed 1/60th shutter. I can't remember if this baffling choice was on the Canon T1i or the old Sony H1, but I lost any trust of camera firmware authors after that. Perhaps with the AI subject detection it chooses an appropriate shutter speed, but what does it consider appropriate? No blur? A bit of blur on something fast? What makes the DoF appropriate? It doesn't know if I want an isolated subject. Nah, I'd rather pick.

Since Auto ISO was already a thing, the only real new option it gives you is manual ISO + Auto everything else... which is green box mode with a random Av or Tv change applied to compensate for your ISO choice... Or am I missing something compelling?

Adding further wrinkles (that nobody can help with) Magda wanted something light, as the old 1Ds2 hurt her hands. She also requested a zoom faster than 2.8 since she became aware such a thing existed... The two requests seem mutually exclusive on Canon mirrorless, as the RF 28-70 f/2 seems to be the only option, and it weighs the same as the 1Ds2 did. Maybe I need to invest in helium lens coats.

[neuroanatomist]

I looked up the Fv mode. It's basically you choose one thing, the camera auto selects the other two. So it's 1) Av+Auto Tv/ISO, 2) Tv+Auto Av/ISO, or 3) manual ISO+Auto Av/Tv, with the camera auto selecting every creative option, ie. DoF and motion blur. I'd still prefer to choose the creative parts and let the camera select just the exposure.

Maybe Fv is smarter than the old sports mode which used a fixed 1/60th shutter. I can't remember if this baffling choice was on the Canon T1i or the old Sony H1, but I lost any trust of camera firmware authors after that. Perhaps with the AI subject detection it chooses an appropriate shutter speed, but what does it consider appropriate? No blur? A bit of blur on something fast? What makes the DoF appropriate? It doesn't know if I want an isolated subject. Nah, I'd rather pick.

Since Auto ISO was already a thing, the only real new option it gives you is manual ISO + Auto everything else... which is green box mode with a random Av or Tv change applied to compensate for your ISO choice... Or am I missing something compelling?

I think you're missing something compelling.

With Fv, one dial controls which side of the exposure triangle you are setting and the other dial controls the value for that setting. I view it as a practical combination of Av+Tv+M (+P), and functionally you can switch between analogs of all those modes on the fly. You can set any or all of the three controls to Auto in Fv mode, but you can also set a specific value for any or all of them in Fv. If you set all of them to Auto, that's like P mode. If you set two of them to Auto, that's like Tv or Av mode with Auto ISO. If you set all of them to a specific value, that's like M mode. But all of that is done without changing your mode dial.

In M mode on a three-dial camera, you can have shutter speed, aperture and ISO each on their own dial. Fv mode gets you very close to that capability with only two dials.

https://www.eos-magazine.com/article...e/fv-mode.html

The only 'challenge' is if you have dialed in a setting for one of the values then you want to go back to Auto for that setting. Auto is at one end of the range, i.e. if you're in Fv mode shooting with a specified aperture and you decide you need a fast shutter speed. You rotate the quick dial 2 to select shutter speed and you rotate the main dial to set 1/1000 s. But then you want to go back to Auto, so you have to spin the main dial all the way past 30 s, which is a lot of clicks (granted, you had to do that to get from Auto to 1/1000 s). My workaround for that is to set a button to reset the active control to Auto (a button can also be assigned to reset all three controls to Auto).

To be honest, I just left Fv alone for a while. Reading about it made it seem cumbersome and a bit confusing. But once I started using it, I loved it. On my R3, I have mode changes assigned to the M.Fn button and I have the available modes restricted to M and C1-3. All of my C# modes are based on Fv; C1 for static subjects, C2 for moving subjects, C3 for birds, with different controls set to default values e.g. C3 is set to aperture wide open (I set it with an f/1.4 lens mounted so any lens I mount starts wide open), shutter speed 1/2500 s and Auto ISO. But I can change any of those on the fly with Fv.