Canon T2i questions

[Happy_Mummy]

So hubby got me a T2i for Christmas and I've been so crazy busy since Christmas that I haven't yet had much of a chance to really play around with it. That said, I do have a few questions so far that I'm hoping that someone can help me with. First off, I'm loving the photo quality for the most part, and I really love how fast it focuses and takes the photos. I am also excited because the store he bought it from offers a course so that I can learn how to use it, so I'm signed up for it in February. Anyways, on to my questions...

First off I'm still using more the automatic settings while shooting. I will play with the more manual settings when I start taking photos that I'm not concerned about getting really nice shots, but for the kids' Christmas photos I obviously wanted nice memories!!! So when taking photos of my three kids together I typically avoid using portrait - my kids are young and I find the narrow depth of focus only gets one of them in focus since they are moving forward and back, so they are rarely lined up all evenly. I'm still trying to get the Christmas photos, and I'm not completely happy with the results. My old camera had a portrait/landscape option as well as landscape which worked really well for these types of photos. I noticed when I used the landscape setting that I didn't get very crisp photos, I'm guessing due to the wide depth of focus mixed with high iso? The best way I can describe the photos is they look in focus, but overall grainy. I tried sports tonight which seemed to do better, except the kids have yet to cooperate with me for 3 nice smiles. I guess that is what happens when you have three kids aged 1,2 and 4!

My second issue is flash related. Hubby got me an external flash as well (not sure if it makes a difference, but the speedlite 430EXII). Since putting it on the camera after I take it off the camera the regular flash doesn't pop up, so I'm forced to use it. Most of the time it isn't an issue since the photos are so much better with it, however I would like the option to use the on-camera flash when I don't want a zillion pieces with me, also I find that the flash makes the camera top heavy and it doesn't sit up around my neck, so times when I want to take photos at preschool it would be nice to not have the flash to deal with as well.

So far that is it, I still need to sit down with the camera's manual, I"m on my own tomorrow night, so maybe I will try then once kiddos are in bed I will try to post pics showing what I'm talking about on flickr so that you can see what I'm talking about.

eta none were taken in landscape, hubby took the photos in portrait and I took them in sports. I labelled the photos with what I thought was the pertinent info for help.

[Doug Pardee]

The second issue is simple. The little switch that tells the camera that you have an external flash mounted is stuck. See here for what it looks like on a Rebel XT/350D; yours may be on the other side and may be a different color: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougpardee/133066175/

Just poke around in there with a toothpick or something to free up the switch.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by Happy_Mummy

... My old camera had a portrait/landscape option as well as landscape which worked really well for these types of photos. I noticed when I used the landscape setting that I didn't get very crisp photos, I'm guessing due to the wide depth of focus mixed with high iso?

Good guess. Yeah, the difference here is the achievable depth of field due to sensor size. Tiny P&S camera sensor => huge DoF. With a P&S camera, focusing isn't particularly critical. With a dSLR, the larger sensor gives you a thinner DoF, and accurate focusing is much more critical. Landscape mode typically stops down your aperture (i.e., makes it smaller) to give you more depth of field, but this also reduces the amount of light coming in, so your shutter speed or iso (or both) will be increased. With a longer shutter speed, you run the risk of motion blur showing up, and with larger ISO settings, you increase the noise.

Your course will probably help you with all of this, but a lot of what photography is about comes down to those three settings: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, and how they interact with each other. That's why when you post an image here, we'll also ask for the EXIF information--to see what those settings were when you took the shot.

I'd encourage you not to be using the scene modes, because you don't have more than a general control over those settings. Starting out in the CA mode might be helpful in transitioning you to grabbing control over those settings.

[Happy_Mummy]

Originally Posted by Doug Pardee

The second issue is simple. The little switch that tells the camera that you have an external flash mounted is stuck. See here for what it looks like on a Rebel XT/350D; yours may be on the other side and may be a different color: Location of external flash detection switch on Canon XT/350D | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Just poke around in there with a toothpick or something to free up the switch.

Thank you so much!!! I found what you were referring to, there was a bit of fluff, once that was gone the flash worked like a charm.I will have to make sure that the bottom of the flash stays clean!

Originally Posted by inkista

Good guess. Yeah, the difference here is the achievable depth of field due to sensor size. Tiny P&S camera sensor => huge DoF. With a P&S camera, focusing isn't particularly critical. With a dSLR, the larger sensor gives you a thinner DoF, and accurate focusing is much more critical. Landscape mode typically stops down your aperture (i.e., makes it smaller) to give you more depth of field, but this also reduces the amount of light coming in, so your shutter speed or iso (or both) will be increased. With a longer shutter speed, you run the risk of motion blur showing up, and with larger ISO settings, you increase the noise.

Your course will probably help you with all of this, but a lot of what photography is about comes down to those three settings: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, and how they interact with each other. That's why when you post an image here, we'll also ask for the EXIF information--to see what those settings were when you took the shot.

I'd encourage you not to be using the scene modes, because you don't have more than a general control over those settings. Starting out in the CA mode might be helpful in transitioning you to grabbing control over those settings.

What you said all makes sense, but I must say I never used portrait on my point and shoot because the subject was always out of focus - not sure if it was a focus issue vs camera shake vs it focusing on the wrong spot and everything else looking out of focus. If memory serves, I think most of the time it was focussing on the wrong thing - nose tips would be clear, but not eyes. The manual focus was not easy on the camera, so I pretty much never used it.

As for the course, I'm not sure if it will go into much photography side of things, although it must touch on that a bit. It is a course specifically for the T2i, so I'm hoping to have more understanding to the camera's features and what I can do with the camera. I'm just not sure how much they will touch on how to use the "triangle." I need to get Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure from the library again! lol

I did post the photos in my flickr account and included the EXIF info that I thought was important, not sure if I needed more? There are 5 Christmas photos of kids, those are the ones, since there are only 6 photos they shouldn't be hard to find!

I just looked at the CA mode and I will have to play around with it a bit more. I was able to figure out how to navigate through the settings, but when I came to background blur sometimes I'm able to adjust this and sometimes I can't. the oddest part was I adjusted it, took a photo, then while "looking" at the same thing with the lens I couldn't adjust it. It went grey like it was something that I was locked out of. I'm going to try to force myself to keep playing outside of shooting modes.

I hadn't realized how use to the new camera I had become and how slow my other camera was in comparison. I took the kids tobogganing today and used my old camera since I only have a huge camera bag for my new one and I didn't want to put it down in the snow, and I needed to be able to help the kids get up the hill and get seated. Uggg, it was awful how slow the camera was to take pics and turn on! Made me love the slr and made me want to run out to the store for a case for just the camera with a lens on it! lol

[inkista]

Originally Posted by Happy_Mummy

... I just looked at the CA mode and I will have to play around with it a bit more. I was able to figure out how to navigate through the settings, but when I came to background blur sometimes I'm able to adjust this and sometimes I can't. the oddest part was I adjusted it, took a photo, then while "looking" at the same thing with the lens I couldn't adjust it. It went grey like it was something that I was locked out of.

This is probably because of the kit lens.

Your kit lens is the EF-S 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 IS.

The f/3.5-5.6 is the key bit here. That is NOT the aperture range of the lens (the way that 18-55 is the focal length/zoom range of the lens). This is the maximum aperture of the lens. It's f/3.5 at the 18mm wide end of the lens, and f/5.6 at the telephoto (55mm) end of the lens.

Depending on how you're zoomed, you can only open the aperture so wide.

The 18-55 is what is known as a "slow" lens--that is, its max. apertures are smaller than f/2.8. f/2.8 and wider lenses are known as "fast" lenses, and are the lenses that are better for lower-light conditions (such as indoors without a flash), since the aperture can be opened very wide, and grab more light more quickly, so faster shutter speeds can be used.

However, the flip side is that the wide apertures result in very thin DoF, so focusing becomes highly critical and can result in only part of a face being out of focus. However, the look of a thin DoF can also be extremely helpful in focusing attention on the subject of a photograph, if you can place the DoF and focus correctly.


Canon XT/350D. EF 135mm f/2L USM. iso 1600, f/4, 1/1600s.