Canon 7D Mark II - Exposure Compensation on the Fly

I have a Canon 7D Mark II and several lenses. 100-400L II, 70-300L, 15-85.

I shoot a lot of birds in flight.

I am just starting to use Auto ISO in M mode. Prior to Auto ISO I was using Tv mode.

Mostly the same issue applies to both.

I would like to add about 2/3 stop when shooting above the tree line because in general the sky is lighter than the bird and the bird is too dark.
I would like to siubract about 2/3 of a stop when shooting below the tree like for the opposite reason.

Two questions
a) How do others handle this?

b) Right now I use the Selection Lever to pick the focus area - single point, single point plus 4 helpers, etc.
I keep my camera in AI-Servo and have the AF-On button programmed to One Shot when pressed and AI Servo when released.

Is it possible to add the above compensation two one or two buttons (+ or -).

Right now I go to Menu and set compensation but that's very slow.

Thanks.

Myer,

On my Canon T8i, I can adjust the exposure compensation on the fly by holding down the Set button, and turning the main wheel/dial on the top of the camera.
I set this up ahead of time by going into the Custom functions# 13 (the little wrench looking icon) and selecting the Set button.

The procedure may be different om your 7D. Your manual may tell you how.

Steve Thomas

I have the 7D (original) and the 55-250MM STM. I am new to wildlife photography but I quickly learned that controlling shutter speed was often more important than aperture, at least on a relatively slow zoom. So I use Tv mode and keep shutter speed at 1/1000 or faster and the camera chooses the aperture. That means that the rear dial controls exposure compensation. On the 7D and most other Canon DSLRs (other than the Rebel line), the rear dial is large and very easy to find with your thumb without removing your eye from the viewfinder. So that works well if the maximum aperture of your lens gives you enough depth of field. You can dial in + or - ⅔ stop of EC with the dial and confirm in the viewfinder. The EC dial clicks at each ⅓ stop, so you can probably make the adjustment without diverting your attention to the meter info at the bottom of the viewfinder. On Rebels with only one control dial, there is an exposure compensation button somewhere on the back of the camera. You have to press that button to change EC. On the SL Rebel (100D) series, the button is just above and to the left of the rear D Pad. It is actually pretty ease to develop the muscle memory to reach the EC button by finding the D Pad and moving slightly to the left and up without taking your eye from the viewfinder.

The alternative, which I have not yet mastered and probably never will, is Manual mode with fixed ISO, where you use one of the dials (you can assign the top control dial or rear dial) to control shutter speed OR aperture and you adjust that variable to cause exposure to be above or below the meter reading shown in the viewfinder. That obviously takes away the flexibility of auto ISO, so you would be changing ISO manually whenever required. I find that process takes too much of my attention when simultaneously trying to track and focus on the subject.

I would love to hear how experienced wildlife photographers do this.

Hi Myer,

I have the 7D mkII and use the 3 custom modes on the top dial, I use the C3 for Birds in flight as it is the last clockwise turn the camera makes and I know if I spin that dial as far as it goes (no need to look and check) all my BIF setting are set for me automatically, this includes exp. compensation, focus mode, shutter speed etc, etc.

The other 2 custom modes I set for perching birds, slow or stationary and fast moving active types.