DSLR owners thread

[DonickCo]

he means the standard 75-300 USM, i think

-DonickCo

 

[diz420]

Thanks for the start

I would suggest checking out the reviews and forums over at http://www.dpreview.com/. There are getting to be so many consumer-level DSLR's that it really will come down to how you plan to use it and what features are most important to you. The folks on the forums there are really good at sharing the pros and cons of their cameras. There are a lot of good user reviews of lenses there as well and a lot of people happy to point you to additional resources to learn more about a particular camera system.

This link helped out alot.

Also thanks to PhotoDave219, DonickCo and SirNim for what I've been able to pick up on by reading this thread...

 

[SirNim]

Hello folks, again. I'm looking into accessories for the 28-135.

I got the lens hood, now we need a lens cap too.

It's a 72mm cap. What about filters? Is the "Tiffen 72mm Photo Essentials Filter Kit" a good buy, and more importantly, will it fit on the lens?

Tanks!

 

[PhotoDave219]

No but you need a 72mm clear UV/haze filter just for protection. Tiffen makes the best. In short.... this means if you drop the lens, you'll break the filter and not the front element. Same deal with scratches. Its like insuance....

 

[SirNim]

So, a 72mm UV/haze filter... preferably Tiffen. How's this?

Polarizer necessary too?

 

[PhotoDave219]

Exactly that. When you're talking about the cost of a good lens, you need that kind of a filter.

As for a polarizer, thats an artistic thing. It helps knock down polarized light and deepens teh sky.

 

[Laura]

One thing that is hard to get used to when using a DSLR for the first time is the way that the images look straight out of the camera. DSLRs are set for much less sharpness, contrast and color saturation by default than most consumer digital cameras. Therefore, the images tend to seem a bit dull and lack pop straight from the camera. The reasoning behind setting the defualts this way is that most DSLR users are more sophisticated than the average point and shoot user and will want the image to be a neutral as possible so that there is more latitude for manipulation of the image later.

It is possible to change the default settings of your camera to crank up the sharpness, contrast and color saturation to get images with more pop straight out of the camera. However, I would recommend playing with the images in photoshop (or whatever you use) to see if you can get the look you want after shooting. Once you get in the habit of post-processing your shots you will probably find that you prefer the results you get that way to the way the shots look changing the settings in the camera. Sure it takes a little more time, but in the end you will get images that more closely express the vision you had when you took the shot.

Ultimately, short of buying some very expensive "L" lenses this is the only way to give your images more oomph. Most consumer level lenses will give roughly the same results as the kit lens.

Wow I'm so glad I just read this. Just about every picture I take on my digital rebel looks dull. I thought it was just me being a bad photographer or something. I have to manually edit every one of my photos (about 500 a month which is time consuming) to add color. In photoshop I always have to add more red and yellow and my pictures always look underexposed so I have to adjust that as well. I would love to set my camera to do these things automatically as I hate spending so much time fixing all my images afterwards. Is it simple to do this? If I screw up is there any going back?

 

[PhotoDave219]

Laura, set the Color Space in your Settings on the DRebel to Adobe RGB.

Also.... follow the photoshop steps to making sure your monitor is calibrated properly. (Dont ask me how, theres some sorta wizard to do it)

Other things - Exposure, exposure exposure. Make sure your exposure is right on or overcompensate by a 1/3rd of a stop at +.3 ..... Make sure the auto white balance is set to Auto... unless you specifically want a certain effect. (I'll explain tungsten lighting and color temperature later)

Is there a way to undo it if the camera does it for you? Nope. Not even in RAW. But you can always set up batch processing in Photoshop.

 

[EpcoTim]

Actually, you can do a lot in RAW, except change the composition, of course. You can change the White Balance, alter the exposure, etc...But the downside to RAW is that it does require some if not a lot of work in an image editor like PS.

JPEG Fine/Large is perfect if you want less post processing and dont mind some often minor faults.

One thing I can tell you is this....the Canon's still can't handle Tungsten or flourescent lightning when its in its auto WB mode. For those situations Ive been doing a custom WB reading by measuring off a grey card.

Also, when your editing your photos in PS, are you using an LCD monitor or a laptop? If you are, that is the cause of a big problem. LCD displays cant display a color range as wide as AdobeRGB (which is probably what your Dreb is set at) so you have to lower it to sRGB, which limits your color range and can take the life out of your photos.

Just some thoughts.


Happy Shooting!!

 

[pisco]

I'm going to have to disagree with Dave on one point here. I always shoot at -.3 EV in bright daylight with my Digital Rebel as I find it tends to blow highlights pretty easily in those conditions. You can always bump the exposure in PS later if it is a little under exposed but you can never get those blown highlights back.

To go on a slight tangent, here is a tip to tweak exposure in Photoshop (or any program that supports layers) after the fact when shooting in jpeg mode. First create a copy of the image in a second layer. To increase the EV, set the blending mode of the copied layer to "Screen". To get a +.3 EV set the opacity of the copied layer to 33%, 66% for +.6, etc. To get - EV set the blending mode to "Overlay." This simple trick has saved many an underexposed shot for me.

 

[PhotoDave219]

I hate spending hours fixing things with the computer.... Hense why i prefer shooting in good light....

 

[Laura]

Also, when your editing your photos in PS, are you using an LCD monitor or a laptop? If you are, that is the cause of a big problem. LCD displays cant display a color range as wide as AdobeRGB (which is probably what your Dreb is set at) so you have to lower it to sRGB, which limits your color range and can take the life out of your photos.

If it's a photo I really like I try to look at it on both my laptop and PC just to make sure it looks ok. For example, if I use the burn tool on a photo to darken an object in the background it might look fine on my PC but then when I look at it on my laptop you can see all the streaks from the burn tool, so I have to retouch it again on my laptop. Then on the flip side if I adjust the brightness of a photo on my laptop it might look ok until I see it on my PC where it still looks too dark. But generally I do all my photo stuff on my PC.

I hate spending hours fixing things with the computer.... Hense why i prefer shooting in good light....

Me too - but my number one subjects are my 1 and 3 year olds and they don't always stay in good lighting unfortunately LOL.

Here's the best example I could find of the issues I'm having with my rebel. This is a photo that I took in pretty darn good lighting conditions (sorry - compressed image so it's grainy), but I considered it one a "throw away" because I didn't like the composition so I didn't bother retouching it. Link: http://www.fototime.com/{9B65D422-D736-4817-A9FA-C23811230E4D}/picture.JPG It's really dull, dark, etc.

Then this photo was taken just a few seconds later (same lighting) and I liked the composition better but the colors were boring just like the first photo, so I retouched it by adjusting the colors and brightness, adding some saturation, etc. Link: http://www.fototime.com/{9C59DA45-B646-46D3-953E-8EF6863D4E4E}/picture.JPG

I wish the pictures would just come off the camera looking like the second picture rather than the first picture. I don't know if it's something I am doing wrong as a photographer, or just the fact that my camera is not adjusted the best it could be, or who knows. It's just annoying having to add color to every photo I take since I take over a hundred a week. My photos always have too much blue and not enough reds and yellows.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Seems like white balance issues right off the top of my head....

 

[pisco]

The auto white balance on the Rebel could certainly be better. The good news is that you can set the WB manually. Or shoot in RAW. This will allow you to adjust the white balance later to get a better result.

Those images also seems problematic in that it appears that your child was in the shade with a brighter background behind him. Depending on the mode you were shooting in the camera will try to get the best exposure and WB for the overall scene. This can cause some problems under the circumstance you were shooting in. One thing to try (if you don't do this already) is to set the camera in either Av or Tv modes and manually set the focus point. This causes the camera's exposure system to weight the exposure in favor of the focus point rather than balancing for the whole scene. Your background would probably been a little blown out using this method but the exposure of your child would have been much better.

The last option is to set exposure manually and try to zoom in on the area you wish to be properly exposed, set exposure and zoom back out to get all the the scene you want. But with a child in motion this is probably completely impossible to do.

 

[DonickCo]

Ok so I figured its time for an update as far as my photo kit go’s.
Over Christmas break I started to have some major problems with my digital rebel. It seams that every 20-100 shutter cycles something weared would happen with the shutter or merrier… and it would give this really off sound and an err-99 and id have to reset the camera. It got to the point that it happened 2 or 3 times out of 10 shots…sometimes. I decided I was going to end up getting a 20d eventventualy so I decided to order it now and have it next day aired from bhphoto.comto me in FL, bc I needed a camera for new years. ( I ended up shooting with both)(vibration seams to make the rebel act up))

In the mean time I picked up afue more lenses… my main kit is now; a,
15MM f/2.8, fisheye,
17-35 f/2.8L USM,
28-135 f/3.5-5.6 USM IS,
28-200 f/4-5.6 sigma 1:3 macro,
75-300 USM (witch is giving me problems very fuzzy at 300, more then normal)
Sigma 300 f/4.
1.4 and 2X TC from sigma.

and the Canon 580EX flash...(i LOVE IT (i only got it BC i needed the 550ex or the 580ex to do 2nd curtain on the reble, but u dontn need a fancey flash to do it on the 20D)

I also picked up a backpack…. (It a crappy knock off lowepro… don’t buy CRAP… its already starting to rip.) a tripod, and some more supper clamps… witch didn’t make it there by new years, and Disney didn’t let me bring the new tripod in for new years…. It was a Bogen 3036 witch go’s to 7’…. I don’t know what I was thinking that night on ebay….. I think I was thinking wishes in a crowd… or parade shooting

So now im really starting to use my film body (EOS 650) more… bc when u throw the 15mm 2.8 on it it a full 180dagree field of view… I had a lot of fun with that over the holidays with family and shooting ROE.

This semester I decided to take a film class at college,….. cant wait.

NYE 15MM rebel
NYE 17-35MM 20D

-DonicKCo

 

[EpcoTim]

I just got a 20D after shooting the last 10 years with slide film. And im impressed with the 20D. Its built closer to my EOS3 specs than it is the lower end cameras, which surprised me.

It does a few weird things, which im trying to figure out, bit it works.

And if your looking for a good, relatively cheap bag, go to REI or any good outdoor store. I got a good single strap courier bag, that hols my camera, and 3 or 4 lenses, plus 15 rolls of film, my filter kit, tape, zip ties, pocket tripod, everything. And it sits close to the body and doesnt get in the way one bit like a backpack might.