A friend loaned me his 7D and 70-200 L glass for a wedding I am shooting tomorrow and I know nothing about this camera. I noticed when I hit the "Q" button I could change settings such as ISO,fstop etc. So I took a few shots in manual and went back to that screen and all the settings were greyed out. Can anyone tell me why?
You probably have the camera set to auto. The Q button allows quick access to camera settings, but in full auto there's really nothing to set, so most options are greyed out.
A friend loaned me his 7D and 70-200 L glass for a wedding I am shooting tomorrow and I know nothing about this camera. I noticed when I hit the "Q" button I could change settings such as ISO,fstop etc. So I took a few shots in manual and went back to that screen and all the settings were greyed out. Can anyone tell me why?
Ah, there's your problem then. You had manual in bold, so you obviously really wanted to get in there and have complete control of the settings and the camera helpfully turned off those pesky quick access controls the amateurs use. ;-P
Everything should be available in M mode, basically. It's in some auto modes that you can't change some of the stuff. The purpose of the Q button is to bring up a quick-set screen on the main LCD where you can rapidly change a whole lot of parameters, and it's arguably MOST useful in manual mode.
"The layout and functions available will vary by
camera model and shooting mode. For example,
if your camera is set to the Basic Zone (full
automatic) mode the range of functions visible
and available on the Quick Control screen will be
much smaller than if the camera is set to P, Tv,
Av, or M mode."
here's a link to Canon's QuickGuide on the Q button.
