New D-SLR owner with questions

[Disneyfun1]

Hi, a couple months ago i got my first D-SLR camera finally. I ending up getting the canon rebel T2i, with both the 18-55mm lens and 55-250mm lenses. I really like the camera, seems really nice.

A question i have is should i always take photos on the highest 18MP resolution? I notice when i take photos, it takes a long time to put them in my computer, and thats only taken about 200-300 at events. I put it in the medium mode, i think its about 8MP, and they downloaded rather quickly like my P&S camera did with 12MP.

I didnt see much of a difference in the photos and am thinking ahead for wdw, where i will probably take about 2000 shots when we go, it would take all day if on full 18 MP to get into the computer it seems. I am using 16MB class 10 cards-have 2 of them.

Also, i find mainly using the 18-55 lens most of the time, is that correct? sometimes i do want to use the more telephoto, but then i have to change out for just a few shots then put the other one back on.

Lastly, i bought a sun shield for the end of the lens, but i noticed if all the way back at 18MM or 55MM on the zoom lens, i can see it in the corners, so i bought a different one that is smaller and that seems to not show up, but is the longer one better to keep the sun out?

any other help for this newbie would be great!!

Thanks!

 

[ukcatfan]

It sounds like your computer might be the slow part of the equation. Are you transferring over the included cable or taking the card out and using a reader? I suggest a reader over a USB2 port. As for the quality, I suggest always staying at the max. You might regret it later.

The hood you bought must not have been one designed for an 18-55mm lens. Most of them for that lens are petal shaped. The problem with that on a Canon kit lens is that the front end rotates meaning you would have to adjust the hood after every time the focus point changes. That would be very frustrating to me. The hood you got sounds like it was made for a telephoto lens like your other one.

 

[Disneyfun1]

i am transferring using the card in the built in reader in the computer. I just bought a new computer 2 months ago as well, dell quad-core, 6gig of ram and then a 1gb video card. It seems to take forever when transferring pics from the reader before they are in there to view all, and like i stated, if i take about 2000 on this upcoming trip, it will probably take a day to transfer them all. Is the higher res for making bigger prints mainly? I usually only print up a couple hundred from snap fish after we return, and then only a few actually at 5x7 or 8x10 sizes.

Your correct on the hood, it is longer, 2 ends shorter than the other 2 like most i see on cameras, and i would have to rotate it to get it out of the shot if the lens is pulled all the way back, the other one i got is even all the way around and doesnt show in the shots.

I am very new at this, so i need all the help i can get

 

[VVFF]

i am transferring using the card in the built in reader in the computer. I just bought a new computer 2 months ago as well, dell quad-core, 6gig of ram and then a 1gb video card. It seems to take forever when transferring pics from the reader before they are in there to view all, and like i stated, if i take about 2000 on this upcoming trip, it will probably take a day to transfer them all. Is the higher res for making bigger prints mainly? I usually only print up a couple hundred from snap fish after we return, and then only a few actually at 5x7 or 8x10 sizes.

Your correct on the hood, it is longer, 2 ends shorter than the other 2 like most i see on cameras, and i would have to rotate it to get it out of the shot if the lens is pulled all the way back, the other one i got is even all the way around and doesnt show in the shots.

I am very new at this, so i need all the help i can get

If it takes a day to download 2000 pictures then something is wrong with your computer. It's not fast sure, but I would highly recommend using all 18MP. You never know when you might want to crop an image down. If you crop to implement a sort-of digital 2x zoom then you will be at about 4-5MP with an 18MP image but only a 2MP image with the 8MP image. It's very easy to resize them smaller if you REALLY find them to be that annoying. I personally consider 4MB or so a pretty small file as I shoot RAW images which are 30MB per image or so.

Sounds like you bought a generic hood. You really should have bought a hood designed for the lens. There are generics out there that should perform well. Look for ones that specifically say they are designed for your lens. Contrary to ukcatfan, the hood should actually not have petals. The front element of the 18-55mm rotates and therefore should not have petals.

 

[ukcatfan]

It sounds like your computer might be the slow part of the equation. Are you transferring over the included cable or taking the card out and using a reader? I suggest a reader over a USB2 port. As for the quality, I suggest always staying at the max. You might regret it later.

The hood you bought must not have been one designed for an 18-55mm lens. Most of them for that lens are petal shaped. The problem with that on a Canon kit lens is that the front end rotates meaning you would have to adjust the hood after every time the focus point changes. That would be very frustrating to me. The hood you got sounds like it was made for a telephoto lens like your other one.

Contrary to ukcatfan, the hood should actually not have petals. The front element of the 18-55mm rotates and therefore should not have petals.

Did you even read what I said? It doesn't seem like you did. MOST hoods for an 18-55mm lens should be petal shaped because that is what is most effective for that focal length. Canon and Nikon make it tough by having the front element rotate. So if you use a kit lens from them you can either use a petal shaped one and constantly rotate it or use a smaller one that is less effective.

 

[ukcatfan]

If it takes a day to download 2000 pictures then something is wrong with your computer.

I agree. That does not sound right. I also shoot RAW and have files over 20MB each. A whole day of Disney shooting (200-300+ shots) takes me maybe 20 minutes, but that is probably on the high side. Maybe you could try to find some benchmarking software or website to test it.

 

[Disneyfun1]

thanks for the advice. Im not sure why it takes so long to put the pics in the computer, its really fast for everything else, being a quad-core. but when i took about 300 in 18MP size, it did take about 45-60 mins to put them in the computer. I just guessed that if i take 2000 at wdw this trip, it would probably take all day, literally going by that speed. It seems fine the first few, then slows down for the rest. I usually dont crop any pics, or at least have never done it yet, usually take them and keep in computer and print out some for the album, but who knows, maybe i could crop some down.

 

[ukcatfan]

thanks for the advice. Im not sure why it takes so long to put the pics in the computer, its really fast for everything else, being a quad-core. but when i took about 300 in 18MP size, it did take about 45-60 mins to put them in the computer. I just guessed that if i take 2000 at wdw this trip, it would probably take all day, literally going by that speed. It seems fine the first few, then slows down for the rest. I usually dont crop any pics, or at least have never done it yet, usually take them and keep in computer and print out some for the album, but who knows, maybe i could crop some down.

It sounds like there is something wrong with your built in card reader. I suggest taking the computer in for service or buying an external reader.

 

[Disneyfun1]

I do have an external as well someplace, ill take some pics this weekend and see if using that is any faster. thanks for the tip!

 

[VVFF]

Did you even read what I said? It doesn't seem like you did. MOST hoods for an 18-55mm lens should be petal shaped because that is what is most effective for that focal length. Canon and Nikon make it tough by having the front element rotate. So if you use a kit lens from them you can either use a petal shaped one and constantly rotate it or use a smaller one that is less effective.

Alright Alright...group hug time.

Didn't mean any offense by the comment ukcatfan. I thought you were implying that the hood was a petal type which I thought would confuse the OP. I apologize for not understanding your comment fully.

OP, what SD cards are you using. The faster cards help with downloading. Also you should look to get a higher end card reader. They can make a difference speed-wise as well.

SD cards are inherently slower than compactflash which my camera uses. However, it shouldn't be so significant that its taking this long for you.

 

[ssanders79]

It sounds like there is something wrong with your built in card reader. I suggest taking the computer in for service or buying an external reader.

Just to rule things out try to transfer files using your camera as the usb card reader (ie. plug your usb cable from your camera to the pc). While this is not the best way to transfer files it might work better for you in the short term until you can resolve your internal card reader issue. If it transfers quicker than the internal reader call Dell and request a new internal reader under your warranty or go out and buy a decent external reader as ukcatfan suggested.

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

I also would recommend you shoot at 18. Right now you may not be doing any major PP, but if you suddenly catch this sickness called photography you may want those larger files for the future. For the time being, I would recommend you consider shooting JPEG + RAW. Just store the RAW files, again, just in case you get into PP. You may want to go back and re-compose/crop, some of your images. You have many more options with the RAW file vs the JPEG plus you don't lose any data like you do when copying JPEG. I find myself re-visiting older images all the time wishing now I had the RAW files!

 

[boBQuincy]

Theoretically we should only capture what is needed, for an image that is destined for the web 1 MP is plenty, for viewing on a monitor or HDTV 2 MP is all we need. Even a 24" monitor only has about 2 MP so more pixels will not show any improvement in resolution (unless we zoom in).
*Practically* we rarely know in advance what we may use the image for and if it turns out we want a 20" x 30" print we will be glad we used all the resolution our camera can deliver. For this reason I use the best setting available, full size RAW.

As noted, Canon's kit lens has a rotating front element (for focus only, not zoom). Canon's hood is not very effective for the longer focal lengths and I use my hand to supplement the hood in flare conditions. A petal hood may be better but will not be much more effective, it is just a fact of zoom lenses (one exception is Canon's 24-70 where the front element retracts at longer focal lengths, making the hood more effective).

18-55 is a good choice for 1.6 crop cameras (as are the Rebel series) since most of our photos are likely to be taken in this range. This may change as we develop our style and use other focal lengths more but for most people this range works well.

I am not sure what is the bottleneck with your downloading, a current computer with a decent USB2 card reader should be a lot faster than that. For reference it takes me about 20 minutes to download an 8 GB card, the limiting factor is probably the (lack of) speed of the hard drive.

 

[mom2rtk]

I also second shooting JPEG + RAW if you can spare the memory. Now that I have started to experiment more with processing, I look back at all those cherished shots from earlier Disney trips and wish I had the latitude for improvement that I do on the RAW shots I take now.

Just know going into it that it does increase the memory needed exponentially. I'm down to shooting RAW only on my T2i and those files come in around 24 MP.

You may THINK you never want to learn to process your shots, but you just never know. And it's awesome to have the RAW files if you do.

 

[ssanders79]

I also second shooting JPEG + RAW if you can spare the memory. Now that I have started to experiment more with processing, I look back at all those cherished shots from earlier Disney trips and wish I had the latitude for improvement that I do on the RAW shots I take now.

Just know going into it that it does increase the memory needed exponentially. I'm down to shooting RAW only on my T2i and those files come in around 24 MP.

You may THINK you never want to learn to process your shots, but you just never know. And it's awesome to have the RAW files if you do.

I think this is a lesson we all learn on our own at different stages. I started with jpeg only, moved to jpeg+raw and now just raw. I quickly decided jpeg+raw was overkill in my workflow. I really wish I jumped on the raw bandwagon earlier.

 

[Bstanley]

I am transferring using the card in the built in reader in the computer.

What model of Dell PC was it?

One thing to check - make sure the built-in Card Reader is set to USB 2 (or even USB 3) rather than to USB 1. If it somehow was set to USB 1 it would be painfully slow.

 

[Disneyfun1]

its a dell xps, how do you find the setting for the card reader?

 

[Disneyfun1]

its a dell xps, how do you find the setting for the card reader?

 

[Bstanley]

According to the Dell website they make an XPS desktop and an XPS laptop. I'm guessing you have a desktop?

The XPS desktop has a Foxconn 19:1 Card Reader that uses USB 2.0 to talk to the rest of the machine. So far so good.

For Windows 7 - click on the Start Orb. In the Start Search box (just above the Orb) enter "device manager" and then press enter and you should get the following:

By pressing the "+" sign in front of an icon you can expand the list - I would expand the "Storage controllers" and the Universal Serial Bus controllers" (maybe the System devices) and look for the 19:1 Card Reader listing. By clicking on the Card Reader listing you can check to see how it is configured.

 

[Disneyfun1]

is there a lens a little longer in length that is good that is better than the 17-55mm that i wont have to keep switching my 55-250mm lens back and forth with? just wondering