How can I prevent my Canon Rebel from resetting Shoot by Ambience, Lighting, or Scene Type to default on shutdown?

Question

I have been playing around with the settings on my Canon Rebel T3i, since I've been taking pictures in the snow. Most of my snow pictures are just too dark, but when I adjust the Shoot by Ambience or Lighting options from the Q Quick Menu, it really brightens the pictures up and looks better.

However when I turn the camera off, then back on, those settings reset back to the defaults and I'm not finding in the manual how to keep those settings when I turn it off. Does anyone know how to make it so those settings will hold when I turn the camera off then back on, so I don't have to reset them every time?

Answer 1

From page 56 of the T3i Instruction Manual:

If you change the shooting mode or turn the power switch to OFF, the functions you have set on this screen will revert to their default setting.

To preserve custom settings, use the camera in one of the Creative Zone exposure modes: Program, Tv, Av, or Manual. If you have Exposure Compensation set to a value such as +1 or +1 2/3 when the camera is turned off, then the setting will be retained when the camera is turned back on.

The reason your camera defaults to a more general setting when using fully automatic exposure modes is that often users will turn the camera off when shooting in one type of condition and then turn it back on in different conditions and forget to reset the camera to the different conditions. With Creative Zone modes the camera maker assume the photographer will at least take a cursory glance at the camera's current settings before beginning to shoot.