are all these controls so usefull?
 

Hi a few weeks later, n hard work! I use the zebra, but is always work getting rid of the stripes to avoid clipping, then turning back up to avoid under exposing. Would be nice if you could have the screen and eyepiece open at same time and see the zebra only through the eyepiece. This would mean you had a 'working' screen, being the eye piece, and a screen for looking at your shot astheticaly. Yea it would be battery heavy, but i feel worth it.

I find shutter spped not very usefull, anything more than 1 in 50, ie 1 in 25, produces a jittery picture, although great stills in low light. And am confused here... in manual mode, i can change the f value. As i can in AV mode, which i assume locks the shutter speed. What is the advantage in manual mode over av mode, if i dont want to mess with the shutter speed. I see that gain can be changed in manual, but all this appears to do is darken the picture. Maybee when it comes to summertime, and bright filmiing conditions i will be able to find more use of the shutter speed. But tell me am i looking at something in the wrong way because im failing to see the benefit of shutter and gain control, and quite frankly theres only the focus, white ballance, and f value that seem to be worth playing with. And the f value just seems to lighten or darken things, except for when your close up and it allows you to decrease the depth a bit by darkening it. Please inspire me more!

Michael, chuck the zebras on the custom key and you can just hit the button to toggle them on and off.

Aaron

Thankyou, will familiarise mytself with that function. What about the rest? Ive read so much about 'manual' being the best for those who 'know what they r doing'. Well im still learning, but most of the time when i delicatley spend time adjusting the pic in manual, if i flipback to automatic the settings are the same! In otherwords, im spending hours playing with apeture and shutter speed, when i dont seem to need to? Manual focus is handy, and the white ballance is critical, but it seems to me that people have spent hours talking about exp & shutter rate settings, and 'depth' of field as if its some major area of expertise. When in actual fact it is common sence, and it is the white ballance monitiring, actual shots and focus that require expertise and learning. Auto seems to manage very adequatey as fas as exposure and shutter rate are concerned. And the only exceptions seems to be if i want to do an 'arty' shot, and this can be done in editing afterwards???