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I was about to go buy myself a decent camera for Digital Photography but my mom already took the incentive to get one for her trip ^^

She got herself a Canon EOS Digital Rebel Xt with a EF-S 18-55mm Lens. I'll get a chance to shoot some photos tomorrow when it's sunny ^^

Xt is a good DSLR. I would suggest buying Canon's 50mm F/1.8 II prime lens. Costs around 90-100$ and is worth every penny. I bought it a month ago and haven't used my other lenses nearly at all since. 18-55mm (if it's the older version without IS) is a fair lens but the draw is not especially good and it's a bit dark. The IS version's draw is actually quite excellent but still F/3.5-5.6 isn't that great. In any case, very usable focal length range though which makes it a decent all-arounder.

BTW. Sunny weather is not great for photography. Sensors tend to run out of dynamic range because of the strong shadows and highlights. In my experience a bit cloudy weather is the best.

Prime lenses are a bit hard, though. Discovering that my point and shoot's "zoom" was basically the same thing as zooming in Photoshop was a big let-down. Point and shoot models now often combine optical and digital zoom, but I dislike digital zoom for cameras. The zoom was a huge draw for me with DSLRs. Depending on your lens you could pack a wide zoom range, and no part of the zoom range would result in image quality loss.

I have the Zuiko Digital 50mm f2.0 prime, a highly coveted lens among the 4/3 system users. I like it a lot, but I really miss having the zoom ability.

Well... I do have to admit I have quite a bit of history with primes and I'm probably suffering from a little nostalgic love affair with them at the moment. I didn't have a single zoom lens for my AE-1 when it was my only camera. They do indeed require a bit different working methods however you do get quite large apertures and really sharp draw for a good price especially with 50mm lenses. I find the depth of field far more manageable with primes.

On a side note, I'll me looking after my sister's zoo (quite many pets, I'll see if I'll be able to count them) for the rest of the week as she's going on a trip. I'm expecting quite many opportunities for IR and macro photography. We'll see if I can come up with anything decent.

I've been doing some IR-photography. Uploaded a small unretouched teaser. More to come on Friday when I get my hands on photoshop.

On a side note. It seems my prediction about optimal conditions were fairly correct. Direct sunlight at around noon really seems to work the best. I was able to push the exposure times down to around 5 seconds even with F/8 and ISO 100. Fairly calm winds needed though. I have about 5-6 more IR-shots from my latest outing. And I'm off to take some more in a minute.

Hi, guys. Sorry to barge in during such an interesting conversation, but I just joined all of ten seconds ago. Just wanted to introduce myself here. I own a canon eos rebel xti ( a gift from my father), w/ a 50 mm lens. I have to zoom in with my feet but it's my first real dslr, and it was free so I can't complain.

I've messed around in manual with this camera some, though I can't take great shots yet (I don't know how!). I'm just barely touching with the basics of photography (like aperture, shutter speed, etc.). It's been a bit overwhelming. Any tips you guys can give, or any sites you can offer to help me with that would be nice. I'm kind of a lumphead when it comes to things like that.

I am considering a photography class at our community college, though the issue here is really about time and money. I won't be able to make good use of my camera until a year or so later, when I can actually apply for the course.

Well... There wasn't much of a conversation to barge in.

Hi and welcome Nervous Venus!

Photography classes and guides are usually OK. I wouldn't say that they're highly recommended nowadays because digital cameras have made learning by trial and error much easier and most of all cheaper than in film days. Try messing around with manual settings. Canons have quite a good integrated exposure meter so you can easily check your settings. A small tip that I'd give is that if (or rather when) you start post-processing your photos it's recommended to underexpose them a bit. Canon's exposure measuring system lets highlights burn through a bit. xti has an excellent sensor and the noise levels are very low so a little bit of underexposure doesn't hurt one bit.

Also learn the rules of composition and then forget them. They're useful to a point but what is often forgotten is that they're just guidelines not set to stone rules that must be obeyed.

And by the way. Don't feel bad about having a prime lens. Canon's 50mm is actually an excellent lens. You can always crop the photos to your liking. If you use the maximum resolution of your camera you can quite easily crop the picture to about a quarter of the original and the quality is still quite adequate for most cases.

If you bump into problems feel free to ask anything. I'm sure all of us are willing to help the best we can.

Very neat IR shot, escimo. Those are the types of shots I'd want to get with an IR filter. If you raise the ISO will more color enter into the picture?

Welcome, Nervous Venus! I'm not sure what the controls of the Canon are, but you probably have scene modes, full auto, full manual, manual aperture, and manual shutter at the very least. Very few people use full manual, and even then it's generally only in special scenarios.

The way that I learned was by reading over the manual (and reviewing sections often - I carry it around with me) and then by experimentation. I started out using the camera in scene selection modes and made note of what those presets were. The white balance, the ISO setting, the sharpness, gradation, contrast, saturation, etc. I'd also make note of what the camera was setting the shutter speeds and aperture values to be in various environments. That's how you begin to get a feel for for each setting should be and when it's appropriate.

Following that, I began to read up on various things. There are a few websites that have picture examples of the same image, taken at different settings so that you can see the effect. There are also some sites that let you emulate what various settings would be. For example, try this and play around: http://dryreading.com/camera/index.html

Many of us here would be happy to explain any of the terminology or basic techniques to you. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Otherwise, the best way to learn your camera is to use it. Many of your first shots might not come out very well (if at all), but keep shooting! The nice thing about digital cameras is that you don't need to buy new rolls of film and you can see the results right away, so feel free to shoot thousands of pictures.

Lastly, don't get frustrated. I saved the first shots I took with my first DSLR, and it's laughable how poorly they came out. Blurred, underexposed or overexposed pictures seemed to be the norm. I thought I was hot stuff at the time, of course, and kept shooting. There's still a lot of room for improvement, but looking back, I came a long way. I'd say that within one month of moderately heavy usage I was able to take decent pictures. The rest is learned from taking your camera to unique places and using it under various conditions. I'm looking forward to seeing shots from you in the near future.

Ledgem, ISO-value won't affect the coloring, just noise, which is a bit of a problem with my body. IR-filter filters out wavelengths shorter than 720nm. Technical specs for Hoya R72 can be found here. I forgot (again) to take another shots without the filter. We'll see what the weather is like tomorrow if I would remember it then. Combining an IR-shot and a regular photo would probably produce interesting results.

Ledgem, I just noticed that you updated the camera brand of choice to the member page index. That's a good idea.

Yes, I added the brands just so that anyone who is new to photography can link up with members who are familiar with the same system for advice. I considered mentioning specific models, as well, butt that could get lengthy...

Combining an IR shot with a non-filtered shot is an interesting idea. Is that how people produce those "false color" images? In those shots the colors are visible, but barely, and seem incredibly washed out. I wondered whether it was just a matter of the camera being modified and/or using different filter types.

I have a bunch of pictures to process and share, but lately I've been sort of lethargic. My forum activity is also on a declining period.

I went to a park along a river today and got some neat shots of dragonflies and water striders. I started out with my 50mm prime lens and then shifted back to my 14-42mm kit lens. I've been using the 50mm and my 70-300mm lens a lot lately, and it always amazes me to see how much fits into the frame at 14mm. I'm an unlucky one, because I love doing landscape-type photography (where a shorter focal length is superior) but I also want to do wildlife and macro shots (longer focal length is generally better). I find myself switching lenses a lot. The highly exalted Olympus 12-60mm lens would probably cover 80% of my focal length desires, but it's so expensive...

So general question: what's your preferred focal length, and what sorts of photography are you usually doing with it?

Ledgem, Brands are quite enough. As far as functions, menu structures, lenses etc. are concerned DSLR models within manufacturers' product range are so similar that I'd say that specifics usually are irrelevant.

False color shots usually are made using modified camera bodies wider range in IR-range allows you to play around more with colors in post processing. Anyway, weather seems to be favorable today so I'll try combining a regular and IR-shot today.

I see your point about 50mm. Olympus' crop factor of 2 makes it actually rather long lens. 35mm equivalent focal length being 100mm.

As for preferred focal length, for me it's somewhere around 35-50mm (around 55-85mm for full frame). I like focal lengths that produce similar perspective impression and angle of view than human eye. 50mm is now the lens of choice from my collection because of the large maximum aperture. I'd like something around 40mm more but there aren't that many options available, even fewer good ones and none that I can afford at the moment.

Have never posted in this group before so belated greetings to fellow photographers.

My current camera is a much used canon powershot S2 IS. When I am taking outdoor shots, the camera has a tendency to capture too much light, 'whiting-out' much of the photo, especially the sky. What settings should I change in order to avoid this and not have the picture too dark?

Hi, Forceflow.

S2 IS has exposure tuning option.

In the FUNC-menu select +-0 option and using arrows move the cursor left if you want to reduce exposure. Adjustment is +-2 stops. Usually reducing 2/3 stops is enough. That's two steps in the scale.

escimo I thought that all digital cameras had that 2x factor when discussing focal lengths (compared to 35mm film standards). Is the 4/3 system (Olympus, Panasonic) the only one that does this? That is, whenever a Canon or Nikon user says that they're using a 50mm lens, it's a 25mm equivalent for me?

Forceflow: escimo pretty much gave the solution already, what you'll want to do is to reduce the exposure. Reducing the exposure should cause the camera to use a faster shutter speed (and possibly a smaller aperture, if your camera supports it) resulting in less light reaching the sensor. You could also use a lower ISO setting (ISO 100 or ISO 200); ISO controls the sensor's sensitivity to light.

Your complaint is that the sky gets whited out, though. The sky is a tricky one. If you get a perfect exposure on the sky it's likely that the main scene will be underexposed (too dark). I often settle for an overexposed sky that has a few details and colors visible, as opposed to being completely white. If you want both the sky and the main scene to come out near perfectly, look into high dynamic resolution (HDR) techniques.

HDR will require a tripod or a surface where the camera doesn't move. With HDR, the camera will take a few pictures (usually three to five). For each picture it'll use a different exposure setting. You'll end up with three (or five) pictures on your camera. Using Photoshop's "HDR Merge" will automatically link the three images into one image. Any under- or over-exposed parts of the image will essentially be filled in with normal parts from one of the three images. I'm sure other image software can do similar things, if you don't have or want to use Photoshop. HDR pictures have a somewhat surreal look to them. Your camera probably won't call it HDR; look for a "bracket shooting" option, and see if there's a way to vary the exposure with each shot.

I've done a few HDR shots and they didn't look that impressive. My camera only allows me to alter the exposure by +1 and -1 for bracket shooting, which usually doesn't offer enough of a difference between the images to make everything clear. If I did that in combination with manually adjusting the baseline exposure (resulting in a set of six or nine images) I'd probably get better results. That would definitely require a tripod, though.

Ledgem, Canon uses three sensor sizes in DSLRs, crop-factors of 1, 1.3 and 1.6. Nikon uses two, 1 and 1.5. Sony and Pentax have a crop-factor of 1.5 and Sigma 1.7. Olympus and Panasonic have a crop factor of 2. Compacts have smaller sensors I think crop factor of about 9 is as high as it goes today.

My 300D has a crop factor of 1.6. It actually makes quite a difference in the angle of view compared to 2.

I would love a full frame DSLR but they all are really pricey. Canon actually has two EOS 5D and EOS 1Ds Mark III. 5D costs here about 2000€ and 1Ds 6000€.

@escimo
ah thats something i've done before but the results were abit less than what I expected. ^^;; Was wondering if there was anything else I could do so thanks for the reply.

@ledgem
Hmm interesting idea. I'll try it out and see if it works. Thanks so much.

Forceflow, S2 is has a bit of a bad habit to produce very contrasty pictures. That sometimes causes problems with highlights. There's unfortunately quite little you can do about that. HDR-shot is actually one but isn't very useful if you need to record something quickly.

Overall, dynamic range of digital sensors still isn't that great. It's actually still about a half compared to a good film. Fuji's Super CCD-sensor has probably the best dynamic range in the market nowadays. Fuji FinePix S100FS is the closest thing to S5 IS (current S2 IS replacement) which uses it and it's unfortunately quite pricey. Roughly $200 more than S5.

Wrote a little tutorial about desaturating a color photo. Read it here, if you're interested.

Was at a cosplay convention over the weekend and shots turned out pretty well. Sun was hidden so the cosplayers were outside for quite a while. Over saturation was a problem once again but didn't ruin too many shots.

My indoor shots were another story altogether. I attempted to take some shots just using the ambient lighting but there was alot of noise in the pictures. How can I reduce this without resorting to the flash all the time?