Manual mode- what does "L" mean?

[mhattonmd]

Mark iii 5D

Trying to shoot the supermoon tonight.

In manual mode I tried to start with the sunny f16 basics. I could set iso 100, exposure 1/125, but when I went to f stop which was set at 5.6 and tried to change it it said "L" no matter what I tried.

Any thoughts on what L means and why I couldnt set this to what I wanted if it was in full manual mode?

many thanks

[ebiggs1]

"I tried to start with the sunny f16 basics."

You should start with the "Loony 11 Rule."

The basic rule is, 'For astronomical photos of the moon's surface, set aperture to f/11 and shutter speed to the [reciprocal of the] ISO speed.

• With ISO 100 setting in the camera set the aperture to f/11 and the shutter speed to 1/100 or 1/125 second on some cameras 1/125 second is the closest available setting nearest to 1/100 second.
• With ISO 200 setting and aperture at f/11, set shutter speed to 1/200 or 1/250.
• With ISO 400 setting and aperture at f/11, set shutter speed to 1/400 or 1/500.

[MikeSowsun]

It means you have the lock switch engaged under the rear control wheel. 

[lizthorn]

thank you.  must have touched it inadvertently.

Laura

[louloucanon1975]

Just googled my problem and found your solution. Doubt I ever would've worked that out, thank you so much. God knows howI locked it. Grateful.

[wq9nsc]

The lock switch can cause these issues but it is also extremely useful, particularly if you are using multiple camera bodies at an event.  I shoot most sports in manual mode with ISO set to auto and I now use lock extensively after accidentally shooting a short sequence at a night football game with shutter speed bumped to 1/8000 pushing the ISO far too high.  I caught it quickly but still had a few images that were far noisier than they should have been.

You can choose in the setup menu which functions are locked.  During fast action, this lock setting can save you some grief.  I am usually good about keeping a close eye on the information in the viewfinder but when changing camera bodies during a play to follow the action a lot is happening in a very short time and the less chance for mistakes the better and lock is a good tool for reducing the risk of mistakes.

Rodger

[Waddizzle]

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@wq9nsc wrote:

The lock switch can cause these issues but it is also extremely useful, particularly if you are using multiple camera bodies at an event.  I shoot most sports in manual mode with ISO set to auto and I now use lock extensively after accidentally shooting a short sequence at a night football game with shutter speed bumped to 1/8000 pushing the ISO far too high.  I caught it quickly but still had a few images that were far noisier than they should have been.

You can choose in the setup menu which functions are locked.  During fast action, this lock setting can save you some grief.  I am usually good about keeping a close eye on the information in the viewfinder but when changing camera bodies during a play to follow the action a lot is happening in a very short time and the less chance for mistakes the better and lock is a good tool for reducing the risk of mistakes.

Rodger

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I have found one another way to get around the potential problem of making accidental changes by using a custom shooting mode, with the auto-update feature disabled.  Every time the metering timer goes idle, all setting revert back to their defaults.