Help with first DSLR

[vail3r]

Just bought my first DSLR (Canon 60D) and have been playing with it the past few weeks. I have spent a good few hours going through the manual and also had a read through understanding exposure and have been playing trying to get my head round using the Manual settings.

Here are a few I took while playing around:

The above two were just while I was sat on the sofa when I got it out of the box and was trying to get my head round how to work it, so I was pleased that I managed to figure it out!

Last weekend we went to the Science and Industry museum for something to do, so off I went along with my new toy. Inside it was very dark but the flash produced horrible results so I turned the flash off and played around some more and got a few that came out ok.

So, Basically I have a shiny new 60D with the 18 - 55mm lens that it came with and have just bought lightroom. So can anyone give me any tips to help me along?

I am going on holiday on 3 weeks so I'd like to be able to get some nice shot's

 

[D.P.]

Tip 1 don't use the manual mode, use Aperture priority mode and understand what effect aperture has on the image.

 

[Phal]

Yeah I still use aperture priority for 99% of my stuff :/ and that's a year+ onwards hehe

For Lightroom, I've just learned it as I go by playing around with images. Try all the buttons and see what they do and you'll soon learn it. If you prefer being instructed on how to do things then check Youtube for videos and there's plenty of articles out there. It's definitely a good tool

 

[vail3r]

Yeah I suppose using aperture priority makes it a bit easier and quicker. Another question also, when trying to get a blurry background it's never that blurry. Is this down to the cheap lens that came with the camera? Would I be better to get a 50mm lens or something else apart from the lens that came with the camera for portraits/family photo's?

 

[Genoma]

My recommdation is 3 books:

Understanding Exposure - Bryan Peterson
The Photographer's Eye - Michael Freeman
Lonely Planet's Guide to Travel Photography (don't worry about the travel bit it's a great book)

For lightroom check out all the Adobe tutorials on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/user/AdobeLightroom

 

[lukechad]

The kit lens has a maximum aperture of f/3.5 but you will see as you zoom in that raises to f/5.6.

To get a stronger blur yes you will need a lens that has a bigger aperture, and the first port of call is the 50mm f/1.8, the problem I found with a 50mm on a crop body is it can sometimes be quite "zoomy", so I sold mine and purchased a 35mm f/2, has a nice aperture still but far more useable on my crop body (550d).

Not sure if you understand what I mean, basically you have a crop (small) sensor, so if you have a 50mm lens you are effectively getting your 50mm x1.6 which is called the crop factor. So the reality is a zoom fixed at an effective 80mm, wheras the 35mm with a 1.6 crop factor gives a (in my opinion), more useable level of zoom at an effective 56mm.

The shot of the dog looks like it used a fairly wide aperture? (Cant see the EXIF myself),

The shot of your daughter on the bench looks to me like the camera has picked the shoes to focus on and her face looks a little out of focus. For a lot of the time I manually select the centre AF point (it will explain in your manual how to do this), and focus where I want to be focused (i.e your daughters face, then I'd re-compose the shot while keeping the shutter half pressed to take the shot.

Hope some of that is of help

 

[Phal]

Yeah I suppose using aperture priority makes it a bit easier and quicker. Another question also, when trying to get a blurry background it's never that blurry. Is this down to the cheap lens that came with the camera? Would I be better to get a 50mm lens or something else apart from the lens that came with the camera for portraits/family photo's?

The blur or bokeh as most people call it is easier to achieve with faster lenses (lenses with bigger max apertures). The kit lens is probably only F3.5 at the most and this will go up to possibly something like F5.6 when you zoom in. The higher the F number (smaller the aperture) then the less blue you'll see. Also, your distance to the subject will have an effect on how much blue you see (closer is better).

If you don't quite have a good grasp of the whole aperture/exposure thing then it's worth having a read about it or searching youtube for useful video demonstrations. After that, have a play around with taking shots of various things with different aperture settings and at different distances and you'll soon get the idea.

 

[vail3r]

The kit lens has a maximum aperture of f/3.5 but you will see as you zoom in that raises to f/5.6.

To get a stronger blur yes you will need a lens that has a bigger aperture, and the first port of call is the 50mm f/1.8, the problem I found with a 50mm on a crop body is it can sometimes be quite "zoomy", so I sold mine and purchased a 35mm f/2, has a nice aperture still but far more useable on my crop body (550d).

Not sure if you understand what I mean, basically you have a crop (small) sensor, so if you have a 50mm lens you are effectively getting your 50mm x1.6 which is called the crop factor. So the reality is a zoom fixed at an effective 80mm, wheras the 35mm with a 1.6 crop factor gives a (in my opinion), more useable level of zoom at an effective 56mm.

The shot of the dog looks like it used a fairly wide aperture? (Cant see the EXIF myself),

The shot of your daughter on the bench looks to me like the camera has picked the shoes to focus on and her face looks a little out of focus. For a lot of the time I manually select the centre AF point (it will explain in your manual how to do this), and focus where I want to be focused (i.e your daughters face, then I'd re-compose the shot while keeping the shutter half pressed to take the shot.

Hope some of that is of help

Yeah think I have come a bit stuck with the auto focus at times especially when people have glasses on, will start using the center AF to focus on what I want that sounds like a good idea!

Yeah the lens info makes sense, Ill have a look at getting another lens for that then. Just checked the picture of the dog was f3.5 1/30

Thanks for the help I understand a bit better now

 

[alle]

Tip 1 don't use the manual mode, use Aperture priority mode and understand what effect aperture has on the image.

...What's wrong with manual mode?