Using the Rate Button To Your Advantage

When I am shooting a sport for a school I need to be fast when I am picking my selects at the half or after the game. One way that I make this process faster is to rate the photos in camera. Both my 7D Mark II and my 5D Mark III have a button on the back of the camera that allows you to rate the photo. Almost every sport has a time when you can go through your images to pick the photos that are the best. This is by no means a final edit, but it lets you pick the best of the best and give them a rating. Now that you have done that when you import your photos you can then adjust the sort method to only show you these keepers. This little tip saves me a lot of time when I am putting together a photo gallery right after a game. You will eat up your battery more using this method, but I can carry extra batteries. I can’t stop time after the game.

Customizing The Rate Button on Your Camera

On the Canon 7D Mark II you can customize what rating you give your photos. On the 5D Mark III I used to hit the button three times to give it a three star rating which was the highest that it would go. On the 7D II I started off doing the same thing. The 7D II will allow you to rate photos up to five stars. One last tip that will save you some time. You can go into the settings on your camera to the setup 3 screen to change how the rating button works. You can select which ratings that it will place on the photos. Since I only use the ratings to basically mark the photos I disable all but the five star rating. Now instead of having to hit the rate button five times to rate the photo, I just have to hit it once. That little extra tip saves me a lot of time that is precious during a timeout or another stoppage in play.