Canon EOS M100 setup guide with tips and tricks

Canon EOS M100 setup guide with tips and tricks

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Introduction

The Canon EOS M100 utilizes a 24.2-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor. The sensor has a native ISO range of 100 to 25,600 and is the same sensor Canon EOS M50 .This small camera is definitely a great option both for beginners and more advanced photographers who do not want a viewfinder.

If you’re new to digital photography or Canon cameras, I’m sure this guide full of tips and trips will make you more familiar with the various settings, features and functionalities of the Canon M100. Now it’s time to turn your camera on and press the Menu button. You’ll be able to follow along page by page with this guide.

Compared to the more expensive EOS M50, the M100 has a more simplified user interface and you can only choose between Manual Exposure (M), Aperture Priority AE (AV), Shutter Priority AE (Tv) and Program AE (P) Set your camera to M mode if you want to see all the menus.  

Canon EOS M100 Menu system

The Shoot Menu (Red Camera Icon)

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Page Shoot 1 (SHOOT1) 

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Image quality: you primarily need to decide whether to shoot RAW or JPEG. Raw records all the data from the sensor, Jpeg is basically a much smaller file that has all kinds of information already baked in. Most serious photographers shoot RAW, as this gives you the most flexible file to work with in an application like Adobe Lightroom.

You’ll be able to recover more colour in the highlights of your image for instance, and pull more detail out of the shadows with a Raw file than with a Jpeg. The only downside are the larger files and the fact that of course you’ll need to develop them later on. RAW file average size of 15.5 MB an JPEG file average size of 7.4 MB with the M100.

Image quality	Image size (3:2 aspect ratio)	Shots / 32GB UHS-1 card
Large Fine	6000 x 4000 pixels	3651
Large Normal	6000 x 4000 pixels	6782
Medium Fine	3984 x 2656 pixels	6645
Medium Normal	3984 x 2656 pixels	11741
Small Fine	2976 x 1984 pixels	9948
Small Normal	2976 x 1984 pixels	16455
Small 2	2400 x 1600 pixels	16874
RAW	6000 x 4000 pixels	1084
RAW+Large Fine	6000 x 4000 pixels	835

If you decide to shoot Jpeg, you can choose between Large, Medium or Small, each with a Fine or Normal setting. Check the table above for the relative pixel sizes for each setting. I would advise Large and Fine of course.

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Still img aspect ratio

this describes how square (1:1) or wide (16:9) your image is. It’s expressed as a figure, like this: width:height (width always comes first). The aspect ratio of the APS-C sensor is 3:2, and you should use this if you want to use the full surface of the sensor. Cropping can also be done later.  

• 3:2: the native sensor dimension of the M100.
• 4:3: native resolution of a micro-four-thirds camera .
• 16:9: for a wider perspective.
• 1:1: a basic square setting.

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Shooting info. Disp.

This  submenu has Grid display [Off, 3×3, 6×4, 3×3+diag], Histogram disp [Brightness/RGB, Large/Small], Reset.  

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Reverse display

Even though the display looks the same when this function is turned on, it is symmetrically opposite along the vertical axis. Quite a neat feature for the swivel screen when it comes to taking a self portrait or on a self-timer mode.

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Page Shoot 2 (SHOOT2)

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Image review: You can modify the amount of time the image displays on the LCD monitor after your EOS M100 writes it to the memory card. You can set the preview time from 2 to 8 seconds or display the image until you turn off the camera. Or you can turn it OFF if you don’t want this. I turn it off as I can always press the play button if I decide to review a shot I’ve just taken..

• Off
• 2 sec
• 4 sec
• 8 sec
• Hold

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Touch Shutter

If the Touch Shutter function is set to On, you can take shots easily by having the camera focus on your subject and adjust the brightness simply by touching. I don’t use this function, but if you’re coming from a smartphone, you could find it very useful.

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Quick Setting Menu Layout

Choose what is included in the Quick setting Menu Layout and what is not.

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Page Shoot 3 (SHOOT3)

Continuous AF

Enable or disable continuous AF where the camera constantly tries to acquire focus, even without pressing the shutter. Turn this Off.

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AF-assist beam firing

This is a read beam that flash has which helps to acquire focus in situations with low light.

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Page Shoot 4 (SHOOT4)

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IS settings

Some lenses have optical image stabilisation built in. This helps with getting sharp pictures even with low shutter speeds; There are really no negative sides to using this, except that it’s not necessary to use when shooting landscapes.

There is also an electronic image stabilisation system for use with video, that might be beneficial to some, although the effect is minimal.

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Lens aberration correction: digital technology provides the ability to adjust images in-camera. One area this can be useful is in correcting for optical performance. By mapping the performance of each camera and lens at a variety of focal lengths, focus distances and apertures, it is possible to correct for these irregularities and bring the lens performance closer to ‘perfection’. These corrections are only available for photos captured in the JPEG file format. There is no reason to turn this off, except if you’re noticing a slow down when shooting in burst mode. Then this might be the reason

• Peripheral illumination correction: This is called lens light fall-off or drop in the corners or vignetting.
• Distortion correction: If you’re shooting with a wide-angle lens you may have noticed that at the wide end you will most likely find some distortion. This corrects distortion for any lens in the lens database.
• Digital Lens Optimizer: Performs high- level correction for lens aberration in-camera
• Chromatic aberr corr: Automatically remove color fringing due to Chromatic aberration.
• Diffraction correction: a camera and lens specific correction that uses a profile of the lens used to ameliorate the effects of diffraction caused by small apertures (usually f/11 and beyond where there will be decrease in sharpness).

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Page Shoot 5 (SHOOT5)

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Flash control: Using this menu item, you can adjust flash power. The Flash Control option also enables you to customize a few other aspects of the built-in flash.

• Flash firing: Normally, this option is set to Enable. If you want to disable the flash, you can choose Disable instead. However, you don’t have to take this step in most cases.(just close the pop-up flash head on top of the camera if you don’t want to use flash).
• E-TTL II meter: This option enables you to switch from the default flash metering approach, called Evaluative. In this mode, the camera exposes the background using ambient light when possible and then sets the flash power to serve as fill light on the subject. If you instead select the Average option, the flash is used as the primary light source, meaning that the flash power is set to expose the entire scene without relying on ambient light. Typically, this results in a more powerful (and possibly harsh) flash lighting and dark backgrounds.

• Red-eye reduc.: When flash is used in a low-light environment, the subject’s eyes may come out red in the image. Red eye happens when the light from the flash reflects off the retina of the eyes. The camera’s red-eye reduction feature turns on the red-eye reduction lamp to shine a gentle light into the subject’s eyes to narrow the pupil diameter or iris. A smaller pupil reduces the chances of red eye from occurring.
• Slow synchro: Slow Sync Flash is a function found on many cameras that tells your camera to shoot with both a longer shutter speed as well as firing the flash. This means you get the best of both worlds above and can both get a relatively sharp shot of your main subject as well as get some ambient light from the background and foreground.
• Safety FE: The camera automatically changes the shutter speed or aperture value when the flash fires to avoid overexposing and blowing out the highlights in the scene.

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Page Shoot 6 (SHOOT6)

 

Drive Mode: Extremely high speeds continuous shooting up to 10 fps is possible using One Shot AF (first AF position is fixed), and up to 7,4 fps using servo AF (where the camera continuously focuses even with moving subjects).

• Single: the camera fires one shot each time the shutter button is fully depressed.
• continuous high: the shutter keeps firing for as long as you depress the shutter button at maximum burst rate.
• continuous: the shutter keeps firing for as long as you depress the shutter button at a slower burst rate. Great idea if you need to be able to shoot and write longer to the SD card without flooding the buffer.

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AF auto switch

Sets whether to use autofocus or not.

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Self Timer/Remote Control

• self timer 10: the camera takes a picture after 10 seconds.
• self timer 2: the camera takes a picture after 2 seconds.
• self timer continuous: the camera take pictures continuously after a small delay.

A remote controller can also be used.

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Page Shoot 8 (SHOOT8)

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Movie Rec Size

Videos are recorded as .MP4 files (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 encoding with AAC-LC stereo audio) with a maximum duration of 29 minutes and 59 seconds, and a maximum file size of 4GB.

Resolution and framerate options are: Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 60 (59.94), 50, 30 (29.97), 25, or 24 (23.98) fps; HD (1280 x 720) at 60 or 50 fps; and VGA (640 x 480) at 30 or 25 fps.

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Sound recording:

Sound rec. Auto/Manual/Disable;

Manual gives access to a Rec. Level 5-point scale, and a Wind filter/Attenuator screen with Enable/disable for the Wind Filter and Auto/Enable/Disable for the Attenuator.

All these screens have a full-width live horizontal scale showing the current sound levels on the L and R channels.

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Movie Servo AF:

When shooting video, a Movie Servo AF mode offers smooth and natural focusing when changing from different subjects or different distances within the scene, as well as the ability to specify tracking sensitivity, AF speed, and Face Tracking priority.

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AF with Shutter Button 

• You can refocus and shoot a still photo by pressing the shutter button halfway while shooting a movie.
• When shooting a static subject (not moving), you can take a picture with precise focus.

The Canon EOS M100 automatically uses slow shutter speeds to obtain brighter recordings in places with insufficient lighting. Ituses shutter speeds down to 1/30 second.

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Playback Menu (blue playback icon)

Page Play 1 settings (PLAY1)

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Protect images

You can select how to protect and unprotect an image from deletion on the EOS 50D. Once an image is protected, it cannot be erased by the camera’s erase function. To erase a protected image, you must first cancel the protection. If you erase all the images, only the protected images will remain. This is convenient when you want to erase unnecessary images all at once.

You can choose to Select images, Select range, All images in folder, unprotect all images in folder, All images on card or unprotect all images on card.

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Rotate image

Vertical images are rotated automatically so they are displayed vertically on the camera’s LCD monitor and personal computer instead of horizontally. The setting of this feature can be changed.

• Immediately after image capture, the vertical image will not be automatically rotated for the image review.
• If the vertical image is taken while the camera is pointed up or down, the image might not rotate automatically for playback.
• If the vertical image is not automatically rotated on the personal computer screen, it means the software you are using is unable to rotate the image.

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Erase images

Select and erase images by selecting a range or All images in folder or All images on card.

 

Rating

You can add a star rating to your images here. This rating will show up later when you transfer the images to your computer if you use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional.

You can:

• Select images
• Select range
• All images in folder
• All images on card

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Slide show

You can setup and start an in-camera slideshow here.

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Page Play 2 settings (PLAY2)

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List/Play Digest Movies

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Resize

It’s also possible to resize your RAW images and save them in-camera for posting on social media for instance.

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Cropping

Complementary to the other in-camera RAW processing feature, you can crop your image or multiple images here freely or according to preset dimensions.

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Red-eye correction

You can automatically correct red eye in images taken with the flash. You can also correct red eyes in recorded images. However, red eyes may not be automatically detected in some images or the results may not turn out as you intended.

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RAW image processing

Being able to perform RAW image post-processing right after shooting on a camera is a function that comes in very handy.

These settings are available on the Canon M100:

• Brightness adjustment: EV-1, EV-2/3, EV-1/3, EV±0, EV+1/3, EV+2/3, EV+1
• White balance: WB: Shot settings, Auto, Day Light, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten light, White fluorescent light, Flash, Colour temperature
• Picture Style: Picture Style: Shot settings, Auto, Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Fine Detail, Neutral, Faithful, Monochrome, User Def. 1, User Def. 2, User Def. 3
• Auto Lighting Optimizer: Disable, Low, Standard, High
• High ISO speed Noise Reduction: Disable, Low, Standard, High
• Image quality: write small, medium and large jpeg files in fine or standard resolution.
• Peripheral illumination correction: Enable/Disable
• Chromatic aberration: Enable/Disable
• Diffraction correction: Enable/Disable

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Print Settings

You can connect to a a Printer and Print Via a Wireless LAN. You’ll need to set up the connection here. 

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Photobook Set-up

This function is useful for ordering photobooks online and for printing photobooks on a printer. 

When you select images to use in photobooks (up to 998 images) and use EOS Utility (provided software) to transfer them to a computer, the selected images will be copied into a dedicated folder. This function is useful for ordering photobooks online and for printing photobooks on a printer.

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Page Play 4 settings (PLAY4)

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Transition Effect

Turn on or off the smooth transition effect for in-camera slideshows. 

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Index Effect

Turn on or off the smooth transition effect for your SD card browsing. 

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Scroll Display

Scroll Display allows you to browse through your images when you press and hold the left and right arrows after pressing the play button. You can either turn this trick on or off. 

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Auto rotate

Auto rotate automatically rotates your images that are shot in portrait mode to fit the screen size. You can turn this on or off and decide whether this will behaviour will also apply to images imported to your PC using the canon software .

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Page Play 5 settings (PLAY5)

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Resume

Either resume playback of your last picture when re-entering playback mode with the playback button, or start from the beginning of your images. 

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Playback information display

You can enable up to 9 individual screens – all except the first, which is the basic shooting info overlay, allow the histogram to be specified as brightness or RGB, and in some cases, both.

Set Up Menu (Spanner, yellow gear icon)

Set Up Menu Page 1 (SET UP1)

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Create Folder

You can create the folder on your SD card where files will be stored here.

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File Numbering

You can set the file numbering for each new shot to Continuous or Auto Reset/Manual Reset. Continuous will consecutively number your photos. Auto reset will reset the numbering every time an SD card is inserted, and Manual reset will reset the numbering once.

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Format 

You should format your SD card in-camera every time you insert an SD card when starting a new session. This to make sure that there won’t be any writing errors. Remember that formatting will erase all the images on the card, and won’t even be recoverable if you choose the low level format option.

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Video System

Select either NTSC or PAL depending on the region where you live.

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Set Up Menu Page 2 (SET UP2)

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Eco Mode

This function allows you to conserve battery power.When the camera is not in use, the screen quickly darkens to reduce battery consumption.

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Power Saving

The power will shut off in the following circumstances. Press the power button again to restore power.

Shooting Mode	Powers down approximately 3 minutes after the last control is accessed on the camera. The LCD monitor automatically turns off 1 minute* after the last control is accessed even if [Auto Power Down] is set to [Off]. Press any button other than the power button to turn the LCD monitor back on.
Playback Mode or connected to a Printer.	Powers down approximately 5 minutes after the last control is accessed on the camera.

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Display brightness

Adjust the brightness of the display in 7 steps.

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Date/Time/Zone

Select your local time zone, a date and time for your camera. This information will be written in the EXIF data of your photos.

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Language

Select your preferred language for the camera Menus. I choose English, as it is easiest to find information online in English.

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Set Up Menu Page 3 (SET UP3)

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Beep

You can either enable or disable the beep when you engage the shutter as well as when you touch the screen.

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Operation Vol.

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Hints & Tips

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Mode Icon Size/Info

Change the size of the Icons on the home and info screen. 

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Touch Operation

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Screen auto-lock settings

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Set Up Menu Page 3 (SET UP4)

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Wi-Fi connect’n

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Wireless Settings

You can wirelessly send images to your computer, smartphone or printer. You’ll need to access your local wifi network for this in this menu. 

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GPS Settings

Even though the Canon EOS M100 does not have a GPS module built-in, it is still possible to add location data to your images via the GPS data of your smartphone. You’ll need to install the Camera Connect app from Canon in order to do this.

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Certification logo display

You have permission to ignore this screen, which simply displays logos for a couple electronics-industry certifications claimed by the Canon M100. You can find additional logos on the bottom of the camera.

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Copyright Info

Using this option, you can embed copyright information in your files.

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Reset camera

Fully reset the camera to the factory settings. Warning, you’ll loose all your own settings if you do this.

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Conclusion

I hope you found this run-through of the entire Canon EOS M100 Menu system useful.Despite the Low price point and lesser features in this camera, there are still lots of  features and functionality hidden inside the menu system, and this guide is a great start to discover them.

 If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section below.