Fair enough
According to pg 119 of the manual for your camera it should be fine to use the timer… for Exposure Brackets at least…
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Are you saying that you focus manually? I really wouldn’t recommend it, unless your camera has the zoom-in focus helper in live view. Canon dSLRs are really intended to be used with AF lenses. Just use AF and focus on something roughly 1/3 of the way into the scene, with the aperture set somewhere in the range of f/8-12. And set up your camera for back-button focusing.
The book that @fred_roller mentions, Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson, is excellent and I highly recommend that you get yourself a copy. It will save you a lot of time and frustration figuring these things out.
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Practically, shooting at f/5.6 your hyperfocal distance will be 3.2m, so everything from 1.6m to infinity will be in reasonable focus and probably will provide minimal diffraction.
At f/4 it is 2.3m/4.6m (approximately), if you want less diffraction, but it should not matter much with your lens.
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@priort I will try it again, I think I tested exactly the 3rd paragraph and it didn’t work. Maybe I did something wrong, to be tested again tonight.
@Donatzsky yes, I know how to use the focus points now but I never tried them very much. Maybe i don’t know how to use the AF properly but frankly my impression of it is pretty bad since the beginning, that is why i never experimented with AF in a dark situation and use manual instead…
During day time the AF is fun to use.
I noticed also that i have 2 buttons that will give the live views 3 levels of digital zooms, I’ll try to use that option to check the accuracy of my focus.
You are right again, 
i just tried the bracketing option with 2 seconds timer and it will take 3 pictures with the timer. I don’t know what went wrong the last time, I really don’t.
So ok I don’t know if it’s going to be useful for focus bracketing but at least now I know that the camera can do it for exposure.
Thanks for the info here.
Ok, I am going to read some suggested websites from this thread now.
See you later.
Ha not really me…it just sounded like something basic that the camera should do. The manual isn’t always right but in this case sounds like it is and it will give you an option when shooting HDR content…
yes, I never ever imagined that taking photos was this elaborated. I had ZERO idea. but it’s OK it’s interesting.
I am reading about hyperfocal distance now learning a lot of new things such as this:
hyperfocal distance: the closest focusing distance that allows objects at infinity to be acceptably sharp
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I’m in the middle of writing a blog post on this exact subject. In short, combine a wide-angle lens (wider than 18mm) and focusing at the hyperfocal distance and you should have a lot better luck getting everything in focus.
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As long as you ignore the section on diffraction where he says “diffraction makes no difference” before showing you a side by side shot showing diffraction making a noticeable negative difference in sharpness.
He also says “I’ve always used f22 and beyond and none of my clients has ever complained!” Well, Bryan, maybe that’s because you’ve never given them an alternative?
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As much as I like other books of the author, I think that this one is both outdated and overkill for someone who is not shooting a full-frame DSLR or SLR. For better or worse, most MILC or crop-sensor DSLR lenses nowadays don’t even have distance marks…
Specifically, tther than blowing highlights, digital cameras are super-forgiving when it comes to fine tuning exposure, one can easily adjust \pm1 EV or even more in the midtones in post-processing, even with older cameras. The principles are simple for aperture (DOF) and shutter speed, it is just that learning to use them takes a bit of experience and may involve learning about your specific combination of camera and lens, and a calculator app. But that comes from experimenting, a 180 page book may not help much in addition to a lot of great resources on the net.
Now f/22 will diffract everything ruinously on a crop-sensor MILC, and not be that great for full frame either. Unless one is going for the pinhole camera aesthetic, it is wasting the capabilities of even a cheap kit lens, that can do much better.
Practically, I would just recommend memorizing the hyperfocal distances of one’s favorite wide-angle lens at some key apertures below where diffraction becomes a problem (eg f/4, f/5.6, f/6.3, etc), and composing to that.
This will make 99% of landscape shots in focus, at the price of missing some compositions that would be very tricky or impossible to do without bracketing anyway. Eg at f/22, for this particular Canon APS-C / 18mm combo, the hyperfocal near limit would be 41cm. Compare with f/5.6, you are paying for that extra meter or so with a ton of IQ.
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Agreed!
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And for those whose memories are “good, but short”, there is a plethora of apps that will show hyperfocal distance for specified gear, focal length and aperture.
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I also don’t get his obsession with manual mode. For example, instead of selecting an aperture based on the required depth of field, and then adjusting shutter speed to achieve the desired exposure, using the camera’s exposure reading to set e.g. +2EV desired exposure correction, one could use aperture priority mode and dial in a compensation, letting the camera do the maths.
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For a book titled “Understanding exposure”, insisting on manual mode isn’t that crazy: it helps you understand what exactly is going on in the relation between time, diaphragm, iso and correction, as it forces you to pay attention to all of them.
Of course, in practice, not using the automatic modes when possible is looking for complications
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I think that made sense in the DSLR era, as early cameras, especially in the enthusiast lineup, did not have the robust light metering algorithms we take for granted today, and at the same time the dynamic range was more limited.
Practically, if the scene (but not necessarily the subject) changed a bit, the shutter speed could change by \pm40\% and blow your highlights or make your shadows dark. For most cameras made post-2015ish, I would not worry too much about this.
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Of all the photography tutorial books I read, I remember vividly disliking this one. It felt anachronistically stuck in a film photography mindset, and had a weirdly condescending tone that rubbed me the wrong way.
I think it could also be argued that modern cameras no longer require a good understanding of the exposure parameters. The effects of shutter speed and aperture are probably less important than basic rules of composition, posing, color theory, identifying photogenic scenes… Perhaps nowadays we could be artists first, and craftsmen second.
As such, I’d recommend “Within the Frame” by DuChemin, or “The Photographer’s Eye” by Freeman.
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When I teach basic workshops, I try and dispel this myth that the internet seems to like perpetuating that if you’re not shooting Manual, you’re not really a photographer. Or that ‘the pros’ only shoot Manual.
I make it clear that it’s useful to know how to use Manual - some things just require it, eg long exposures - but it’s also important to know when to use it, and that it’s not the be all and end all.
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I almost exclusively shoot in aperture-priority or shutter-priority mode; it’s enough manual control over the attribute I care about for that particular shot
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