Canon 400D (Rebel Xti, Kiss X)

[Master Mason]

Andy,

The one your looking at that you said it out of focus. It looks to me like it is perfectly focused on the branch in the foreground. it was shot at F5 which is still pretty wide, so my guess is it picked up the focus on the branch in the foreground, and therefore the stuff in the background was blured somewhat.

And Very nice gear Probably looking at sometime next month for me to pull the trigger myself on the 30D

 

[AndrewWG]

Andy,

The one your looking at that you said it out of focus. It looks to me like it is perfectly focused on the branch in the foreground. it was shot at F5 which is still pretty wide, so my guess is it picked up the focus on the branch in the foreground, and therefore the stuff in the background was blured somewhat.

And Very nice gear Probably looking at sometime next month for me to pull the trigger myself on the 30D

Master Mason,

I was thinking that myself, but just don't know what makes for a good aperture for good DOF in that situation. The little focus lights were showing on that tree and on the background so I thought it would come out better. Of course, this isn't exactly a once in a lifetime shot, just a practice shot. I think what needs doing here is that I crack open my understanding exposure book again as now it applies to me much more than with the S2 IS .

I think you will LOVE the 30D, especially if you get it when the price drops. This was basically a "get it now or never" situation that I couldn't pass up or I would have waited a bit longer for the 40D (or whatever it will be called) to come out and get the 30D cheaper. I'm happy with it though. I will be out there today at the Cape Cod Baseball League All Star game, so I will have more to post tonight (if it doesn't rain).

Andy

 

[Lost n' Translation]

Nice, you might try cropping in closer to the three flowers in the middle to tighten up the picture.

 

[dpuck1998]

 

[Taqwus]

Master Mason,

I was thinking that myself, but just don't know what makes for a good aperture for good DOF in that situation. The little focus lights were showing on that tree and on the background so I thought it would come out better. Of course, this isn't exactly a once in a lifetime shot, just a practice shot. I think what needs doing here is that I crack open my understanding exposure book again as now it applies to me much more than with the S2 IS .

I think you will LOVE the 30D, especially if you get it when the price drops. This was basically a "get it now or never" situation that I couldn't pass up or I would have waited a bit longer for the 40D (or whatever it will be called) to come out and get the 30D cheaper. I'm happy with it though. I will be out there today at the Cape Cod Baseball League All Star game, so I will have more to post tonight (if it doesn't rain).

Andy

I agree teh depth of field is off
here is something from canon's site
http://web.canon.jp/imaging/enjoydslr/index.html
it is kind of a tutorial on using your dSLR
you probably needed F22 or something that high, smaller F-Stop is smaller depth of field

Also for the baseball one you might be able to figure out something neat to do sitting at homeplate

 

[jenseib]

Did anyone who has the XTi do the upgrade that was sent out? I have dialup and I'm afraid to do it and have something go wrong or get cut off, or take several hours. it says if the connection is severed during the upgrade it could ruin your camera. It did say you could take it to a Canon center, but I don't know if any are around here. I guess I will call and see.

 

[shancan911]

DPuck, she's a cutie!!!!

 

[dpuck1998]

Thanks..I like her

 

[RadioNate]

thanks for all the responses...we moved from Texas to Florida and I'm finally back online.

Here is some of the EXIF

1/640
f 14.0
Partial Metering (so that could be the issue!)
ISO 400

I can post process them into usable images...I just didn't want to have to.

I am going to call Canon and see what they say as soon as I get settled!

 

[handicap18]

With those settings... ISO 400, f/14, 1/650.... The f/14 stands out out to me as being the possible culprit. Looking at that pic I would think that f/8 would be better with the other settings. Which mode was the pic shot in (ie: Tv, Av, AUTO, P, etc...)?

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I'm guessing that partial metering picked up the white shirt and tanked your exposure. Stick with evaluative or center-weighted unless you are going to be careful about what you meter off of.

 

[jenseib]

An update was jsut sent out for the XTi's as well. You may want to look into that. I haven't done it yet. Did you register your camera through Canon?

 

[jann1033]

Wow Andy! Congratulations! I'm sure you will love it! btw, if your parents want to adopt a "slightly" older/ well worn "child", i'm up for grabs Love those 3od pics!
you know my rebel xt does the same weird thing with the focus point not being where you think you set it., i keep changing it to the center one and it changes by itself..must be a setting somewhere i am missing.
i agree that it's probably the dof that makes your tree one a little blurry. even if the light on the back tree was lit the dof was to shallow to really get it with the other one..i do know on the rebel xt the last thing on the dial a-dep is for if you want everything in a row( ie a row of people, sitting at an angle to you) to be in focus...not sure it it's on the 30d or not. and with the 70-200 remember the crop so you would really need to go no less than about 320 shutter so even with the IS you can't go to low and expect to stay sharp...plus it's heavy...

 

[go cowboys]

are you all doing this with the full PS or just elements?

 

[AndrewWG]

Wow Andy! Congratulations! I'm sure you will love it! btw, if your parents want to adopt a "slightly" older/ well worn "child", i'm up for grabs Love those 3od pics!
you know my rebel xt does the same weird thing with the focus point not being where you think you set it., i keep changing it to the center one and it changes by itself..must be a setting somewhere i am missing.
i agree that it's probably the dof that makes your tree one a little blurry. even if the light on the back tree was lit the dof was to shallow to really get it with the other one..i do know on the rebel xt the last thing on the dial a-dep is for if you want everything in a row( ie a row of people, sitting at an angle to you) to be in focus...not sure it it's on the 30d or not. and with the 70-200 remember the crop so you would really need to go no less than about 320 shutter so even with the IS you can't go to low and expect to stay sharp...plus it's heavy...

Thanks Jan! Unfortunately, I think my parents are happy they only had three kids. I think they have never been happier since we all moved out too! I don't think they want another just yet.

I have not messed with ADEP yet. I am going to give that a try. Does the XT have a DOF preview button? I can't figure out how that thing works to save my life. The view just gets darker and it doesn't really show me a darned thing.

I need to work on my handholding abilities a bit. Possibly lifting like 100 lb dumbells each day will strengthen me enough for this camera with the 70-200 f2.8 on! The freaking thing is HEAVY! Nothing like the S2IS, that is for sure. The S2 feels like a toy already. I still like it though. Here are a couple pics I took today... Looks like the EXIF info gets stripped when you run a pic through noiseware. That is to bad. Now I don't know what it was for the last two. However, The good thing is, I had the camera on ISO 1000+ during the game tonight and I ranthem through noiseware and really didn't notice any difference. I thought they were clear to begin with, just wanted to see what the program thought.

Andy

First a couple nice looking sky pics:

And of course, I have to show a baseball pic:

 

[jenseib]

Have you read Understanding Exposure? If not, that is a good book to read. It talks about DOF buttonand it IS supposed to look dark when you look through it.

 

[AndrewWG]

Have you read Understanding Exposure? If not, that is a good book to read. It talks about DOF buttonand it IS supposed to look dark when you look through it.

I did read it once when I first got the book a few months ago and I am re-reading it now, paying much much more attention to what I am reading. It didn't really apply so much when I was only using the S2 IS. Now it applies greatly! Thanks for letting me know. I will skip to that chapter today.

They should really think of coming up with a smile that has a happy face reading a copy of understanding exposure on this board!

Andy

 

[jann1033]

when i use the dof button it just looks darker to me as well so imo not a real "deal breaking" feature
the understanding exposure smilie might need a confused look and head scratching hand to be a really true to life representation of me rereading and rereading and rereading

 

[lizzyd]

DH and I purchased a Canon XTI. We researched this for weeks and made an informed decision. We found a great deal for the XTi kit on Amazon. The camera arrived last week and we have been fooling around with it, attemping to learn. I noticed a spot in the what I thought was the lens. It couldn't be removed so we have since returned the camera to Amazon for a replacement.

But I am having buyers remorse/worries/angst/etc. over this camera. Is the XTi too much camera for us?

We are picture taking people. We like to take pictures, print them out and put them in an album. We know nothing about ISO, apertures, jpeg vs raw, etc. We have a 15 month old DD who is on the move. With our current digital (a 3+ year old Olympus), we can't get a good shot of her due to slow speed. By the time the picture is taken, she is in another room and I am left with a blurry shot of the back of her beautiful bald head. The Canon is so fast and even the view on the LCD clearly shows that this camera is far superior than our current. I am also quite concerned about the size of the camera and carrying it through the parks on our Sept. trip.

Mostly, I worry that we will never learn the features. We have every intention of learning the camera but what if we never become decent photographers and the camera just goes to waste? And besides the Canon manual, I have no clue where to start to learn.

Can anyone calm my fears? Is this camera not meant for novices like us? Are we not SLR ready?

Please advise, Disney friends! Thank you!

Signed,
Scared of the SLR

 

[tinksdad]

Dear Scared!!

No one starts out with all the knowledge about "anything" new. This is a LOT more camera than your used to, but will also do much more and give you better shots with a better chance of actually catching the action!

Start slowly, have the camera in Program or Auto and learn about framing, composition and focal lengths. As you get more comfortable, start making small changes. Start with putting the camera in Aperture mode and playing with the depth of field that different apertures will give you.

Read the manual, play with the camera, repeat as necessary!!

Knowledge and expertise will come if you WANT to learn. If you don't then it's going to be a hard road.......