Some advice please :D?

NoobPhotographer

Hi, I'm new to photography so sorry if any of these questions sound really lame.

I bought a canon 50d a few weeks ago with a 17-55mm usm is lens, I was told by my photography teacher this lens is great for everything till I can afford a good telephoto and macro lens.

I have a UV filter on it, no hood or anything.

I can take some nice wideangle landscapes and even some decent macros, But when I try to take pictures of people I always seem to mess up

my pictures come out either too dark and blurry, grainy, the skin all bleached out, bright and blurry, or just blurry xD, I've tried playing around with the f-stop, ss, and iso and still cant seem to get a really good picture. I've heard that 3.5-5 is usually the best to take portraits with and I try that and usually my shutter speed is so slow I can't get a decent one, Maybe I'm just never having enough lighting or being that I'm new I'm still too shaky??

Would you recommend a monopod/tripod?

again sorry if this sounds really silly :P, but I'm still learning and any help or advice would be appreciated

heres my flickr if you wanna see some of my photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelseyturner/

leaforte

Welcome to Dgrin! Your slide show is nice. You have a knack for sneakers!

NoobPhotographer

leaforte wrote:

Welcome to Dgrin! Your slide show is nice. You have a knack for sneakers!

Thank you

chrisjohnson

Nice photos.

Hope this is not too basic but be careful when you are shooting into strong light. You may end up with a good sharp picture of sky and clouds and a darker fuzzier face in the foreground. One way is to focus on the face and keep finger half down on the trigger to maintain the focus and settings while framing the shot as you want it. Then shoot.

Richard

Hi Kelsey and welcome to Dgrin . You have a number of very nice shots in your gallery, so you're obviously doing something right. The 17-55 kit lens isn't the greatest lens around, but given enough light, you can get very fine images with it. The devil is in the details, though. Why don't you post a few images that you are unhappy with along with EXIF data and maybe we can help sort things out.

pathfinder

NoobPhotographer wrote:

Hi, I'm new to photography so sorry if any of these questions sound really lame.

I bought a canon 50d a few weeks ago with a 17-55mm usm is lens, I was told by my photography teacher this lens is great for everything till I can afford a good telephoto and macro lens.

I have a UV filter on it, no hood or anything.

I can take some nice wideangle landscapes and even some decent macros, But when I try to take pictures of people I always seem to mess up

my pictures come out either too dark and blurry, grainy, the skin all bleached out, bright and blurry, or just blurry xD, I've tried playing around with the f-stop, ss, and iso and still cant seem to get a really good picture. I've heard that 3.5-5 is usually the best to take portraits with and I try that and usually my shutter speed is so slow I can't get a decent one, Maybe I'm just never having enough lighting or being that I'm new I'm still too shaky??

Would you recommend a monopod/tripod?

again sorry if this sounds really silly :P, but I'm still learning and any help or advice would be appreciated

heres my flickr if you wanna see some of my photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelseyturner/

It sounds like you have problems with exposure settings.

Are you shooting in Manual mode, Av mode, Tv mode, or the green automatic modes of the camera? Are you shooting jpgs or RAW?

If you are shooting in the automatic modes, and letting the camera make all your exposure choices, and focusing choices, you will experience some surprises at times. The exposure meter does not know how bright the scene is, it assumes everything is always a medium grey, and sets exposure based on that. Evaluative mode can help with this, but it still requires an under standing of exposure compensation.

If you meter a face, backlit by sky, it gives you a nice background, but the face can either be too dark, or the sky too light. Spot metering the face can help, or you can meter in Evaluative mode with + exposure compensation. Learning to understand your histogram can help with exposure. Shooting RAW gives even more latitude in exposure settings that still can yield good images. Out of the camera jpgs require very accurate exposure settings ( ISO,aperture, shutter speed ) to create good images.

Learning to use the AF in your camera is a bit of a skill - Use a single, solitary AF point that you select, do NOT let the camera choose your AF point. It will be wrong too often.

NoobPhotographer

Hmm, Okay I'll try out some of your suggestions, I've noticed when I take portraits it usually is outside in strong light

I shoot in Raw, and I'm usually on M,AV, or TV mode, I usually don't let the camera chose my AF point.

I don't quite get what you mean by evaluative mode and exposure compensation... or metering the face xD

ziggy53

Kelsey,

For your outdoor people stuff try shooting in RAW (which you said you already do) and then, when you process the RAW image, reduce the contrast from default until you see what you need. This alone can open up the shadows somewhat. This may require more (selective) sharpening in further post work but it really can help with keeping skin tones in range and keeping better detail in the shadows.

Lower ISOs are also generally much better for outdoor images, unless you shoot during very overcast conditions or early/late in the day. Lower ISOs also tend to hold more accurate tonality as well as range of tones, very useful for skin and sky.

The EF-S 17-55mm, f2.8 IS USM works nicely wide open to blur the background and provide better isolation between subject and background so try to use it if possible. The longer focal lengths in just a head shot or heand-and-shoulders would be best for this technique. Be conscious of the background and how both color and shape either enhance or detract from your subject.

Also learn when to use fill flash to further brighten the shadows and reduce contrast during capture.

A lens shade is a very good idea and you can find inexpensive versions on EBay. (That's what I did.)

NoobPhotographer

Thanks everyone

NoobPhotographer

I took this picture at a baseball game with my family, the lighting was really hard to work with, plus I think I'm really shaky when at a higher F stop but heres all my info for this picture

File Name IMG_6428.CR2
Camera Model Canon EOS 50D
Firmware Firmware Version 1.0.6
Shooting Date/Time 8/28/2009 8:36:27 PM
Owner's Name
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 0.6
Av( Aperture Value ) 11.0
Metering Mode Center-Weighted Average Metering
Exposure Compensation 0
ISO Speed 500
Auto ISO Speed OFF
Lens EF-S17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM
Focal Length 31.0mm
Image Size 4752x3168
Image Quality RAW
Flash Off
FE lock OFF
White Balance Mode Auto
AF Mode AI Focus AF
Picture Style Standard
Sharpness 5
Contrast 0
Saturation 1
Color tone 0
Color Space sRGB
Long exposure noise reduction 0:Off
High ISO speed noise reduction 0:Standard
Highlight tone priority 0:Disable
Auto Lighting Optimizer 0:Standard
Peripheral illumination correction Enable
File Size 20143KB
Dust Delete Data No
Drive Mode Low-speed continuous shooting
Live View Shooting OFF





I took this picture of my boyfriend at the baseball game, I like how it blurred the backround and focused his face, but his face doesnt seem very sharp to me? could this be the lighting as well???

File Name IMG_6373.CR2
Camera Model Canon EOS 50D
Firmware Firmware Version 1.0.6
Shooting Date/Time 8/28/2009 5:47:39 PM
Owner's Name
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/6
Av( Aperture Value ) 9.0
Metering Mode Center-Weighted Average Metering
Exposure Compensation 0
ISO Speed 500
Auto ISO Speed OFF
Lens EF-S17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM
Focal Length 23.0mm
Image Size 4752x3168
Image Quality RAW
Flash Off
FE lock OFF
White Balance Mode Auto
AF Mode AI Focus AF
Picture Style Standard
Sharpness 5
Contrast 0
Saturation 1
Color tone 0
Color Space sRGB
Long exposure noise reduction 0:Off
High ISO speed noise reduction 0:Standard
Highlight tone priority 0:Disable
Auto Lighting Optimizer 0:Standard
Peripheral illumination correction Enable
File Size 21040KB
Dust Delete Data No
Drive Mode Low-speed continuous shooting
Live View Shooting OFF

adbsgicom

Your shutter speeds are very low. The first is 0.6s, which is way too long for handheld (or even on a tripod in a stadium where there are lots of vibrations in the structure). The second is 1/6sec (0.16sec) which is still an order of magnitude off where you need to be. At a minimum, you want 1/focal_length as your general rule, so for the second one 1/25th sec is your min if you are very steady. Now the IS will buy you a stop (maybe two -- see what that lens' manual claims), so the 1/6 is at best on the edge, and that's where your lack of clarity is coming in. For a single person, you could have opened the lens up much more, had good DOF and a much faster shutter speed.

pathfinder

You are shooting in Av mode as you said, but do you truly understand what Av mode means?

You choose what aperture you want, ( and an ISO ) and the camera then sets an appropriate shutter speed, in Av mode. Av mode assumes you know that the shutter speed can be anywhere from 1/4000th of a second or more if you camera goes that fast, to as long as 30 ( thirty ) seconds or one half a minute. This is quite handy if you are shooting landscapes on a tripod, but if you are handholding your camera, YOU MUST monitor the shutter speed the camera chooses in your viewfinder to make sure it is an appropriate shutter speed for handholding.

Nothing wrong with Av mode - I shoot in Av most of the time - but the shooter must monitor the chosen shutter speed and if it drops too low, open up the aperture or raise the ISO to bring the shutter speed back to a more appropriate length of time.

Generally the rule of thumb is 1/focallength is as long a shutter speed that can be used hand held. IS might let you do a shutter speed a bit longer, but 1/focal length is where most folks begin to think about using a tripod for sharp images.

amg2833

Richard wrote:

Hi Kelsey and welcome to Dgrin . You have a number of very nice shots in your gallery, so you're obviously doing something right. The 17-55 kit lens isn't the greatest lens around, but given enough light, you can get very fine images with it. The devil is in the details, though. Why don't you post a few images that you are unhappy with along with EXIF data and maybe we can help sort things out.

Sorry, Richard, I think this is the best lens for crop Canon,the 17-55 IS USM, not the 18-55 IS kit lens.

NoobPhotographer

pathfinder wrote:

Generally the rule of thumb is 1/focallength is as long a shutter speed that can be used hand held. IS might let you do a shutter speed a bit longer, but 1/focal length is where most folks begin to think about using a tripod for sharp images.

yeah i understand what is is, it was just I was told to get a good picture sharp picture of a lot of people I need a high aperture.. so I tried the AV mode for it. :P

What do you mean by the 1/focallength? So if I'm shooting at 55mm your saying the ss should be 1/55 or close to it?

hmm interesting

NoobPhotographer

adbsgicom wrote:

Your shutter speeds are very low. The first is 0.6s, which is way too long for handheld (or even on a tripod in a stadium where there are lots of vibrations in the structure). The second is 1/6sec (0.16sec) which is still an order of magnitude off where you need to be. At a minimum, you want 1/focal_length as your general rule, so for the second one 1/25th sec is your min if you are very steady. Now the IS will buy you a stop (maybe two -- see what that lens' manual claims), so the 1/6 is at best on the edge, and that's where your lack of clarity is coming in. For a single person, you could have opened the lens up much more, had good DOF and a much faster shutter speed.

But every time I try to bump up my shutter speed my picture is too dark, I put the iso up a good amount but my photography teacher told me try not to go past 800 because the iso makes the image more grainy, And plus when Im trying to use a higher f stop to focus on everything in the picture :P, am i missing something?

Tee Why

The images are soft b/c the shutter speed is too slow causing movement from the people to cause small amounts of blurring.

I'd recommend increasing the ISO to get faster shutter speed. A good rule of thumb is to use about 1/60 sec for people to prevent movement blur if they are relatively still.

For both of the pics, I'd probably pick a wider aperture for a shallower depth of field ( like f5.6-8 for the first one and maybe f2.8-4 for the second one) but you'd get a faster shutter speed, especially if you increase the ISO to about 800. I think if you focused on the third person from the right on the first shot and the eyes of the subject in the second shot, most of the faces would be in focus and sharp.

If you just increase shutter speed without correspondingly increasing ISO and/or opening up the aperture, then the exposure will be affected and the image will become darker. While staying at lowest ISO possible is a good idea, I'd say it's better to have a well exposed sharp shot without blurring at a high ISO rather than a noiseless image with blurred soft people due to subject movement.

Nikolai

NoobPhotographer wrote:

But every time I try to bump up my shutter speed my picture is too dark, I put the iso up a good amount but my photography teacher told me try not to go past 800 because the iso makes the image more grainy, And plus when Im trying to use a higher f stop to focus on everything in the picture :P, am i missing something?

Man, you really need to read some Photography 101 book first...

Aperture (f/stop), shutter speed, ISO (sensitivity) are all interconnected. Together they are responsible for how much light hits the sensor, but each is responsible for something else, too (like aperture - for DOF, and shutter speed - for motion blur).

As for pictures being grainy above ISO 800... It really depends on the body. Some suck at 400, some are pretty clean at 3,200.

Re: "1/focal length" rule: yes. It's mostly used when talking tele. So if you're shooting non-IS 200mm, you shutter speed better be 1/200sec of faster. Technically speaking 50mm requires 1/50sec minimum, but at that point it is not that critical (most of us can easilty handheld 50mm at 1/30sec without damaging the image too much).
IS usually allows you to gain a few stops. So if it says, e.g. 4 stops, then you should be able to shoot that 200mm at 1/50sec.

HTH

Richard

amg2833 wrote:

Sorry, Richard, I think this is the best lens for crop Canon,the 17-55 IS USM, not the 18-55 IS kit lens.

Ooops, my mistake. In any event, I think we have pinned down the main problem here--slow shutter speed.

adbsgicom

Looking at your two photos. The first one has a depth of a good 12-15 feet. Unless you are farther away (I'm assuming you are at about 4' from the front person) or have your aperture down in the f/22 or smaller arena, you aren't going to get 15' of clean focus. So you need to either pick your min shutter speed (Tv mode), and your ISO, and let the camera pick the aperture; or select the aperture (Av) and watch your speed (adjusting ISO to get your speed where it needs to be). ISO is a variable in both case and will work the same. Crank it as high as you are willing to go (or is necessary to get the DOF you desire). PS: You also seem to have cropped half your boyfriend out of this pic.

In the second shot, unless you really want the stuff in the background in focus, f/4 or f/5.6 will be fine for your portrait. You were probably very close here, which impacts your DOF (DOF -- depth of field -- is a function of focal length (longer FL -> shallower DOF), distance to subject (longer distance -> wider DOF) and aperture (wider aperture -> shallower DOF). DOF is a range that is asymmetric around the focusing distance where things will still be in focus for the most part. The focal length and distance work against each other and sort of offset one another if you want a certain amount of subject in your frame (not exactly, but approximately). That really leaves the aperture as your primary control for DOF. There's a little button on the front of your camera that will tell the lens to go to the select aperture so you can get an idea of the DOF you will see. Going from f/9 to f/4 would have allowed you to go from 1/6 to 1/30.

Last item, you asked what 1/focal length means. The focal length of the lens is the 18-55 number on your lens. Basically the wider you are shooting, the more jitter you can stand since you are subtending a wider arc of space. As Nikoli pointed out, this is mostly used for telephoto lenses, so a 200mm lens would want 1/200 as the minimum shutter speed.

Hopefully that helped. Just shoot some objects on a table and see how aperture/shutter speed/ISO affect the image.

-a

divamum

Have a look at this thread, where the basics of aperture, shutter speed and ISO got discussed at considerable length in n00b-friendly terms (whole thread is interesting, but it really gets into the mechanics on the 2nd and 3rd pages). Happy reading!

adbsgicom

divamum wrote:

Have a look at this thread, where the basics of aperture, shutter speed and ISO got discussed at considerable length in n00b-friendly terms (whole thread is interesting, but it really gets into the mechanics on the 2nd and 3rd pages). Happy reading!

Gee, wish I had known. That was a lot less typing than my reply....:D

divamum

adbsgicom wrote:

Gee, wish I had known. That was a lot less typing than my reply....:D

Ha! Well, I did the "lots of typing" in that thread, so figured I'd just refer back to my own long-windedness instead of typing it out again ...

amg2833

Richard wrote:

Ooops, my mistake. In any event, I think we have pinned down the main problem here--slow shutter speed.

I agree. No fault of your own, sir. Its a mistake anyone could have made.

Now let's help her out.

NoobPhotographer

thanks guys i just went to my second "beginning photography" class so im learning more now

SOrry for the noob question maybe it will help someone in the future

thanks again everyone