Ugh. I know nothing.

[DemonLlama]

Well, DD's birthday party this evening at the ice rink resulted in one resounding realization for me:

I know NOTHING.

Thought I'd set the white balance for the rink, but I must have gone the wrong way.

Every picture is yellow.

The lighting in the rink (high, flourescent, and generally gray) made me think I should up the ISO, but of course the noise is considerable.

I have yellow noise.

I shot with the RAW + Jpg setting, thinking I could compare the two and make changes to the RAW at will.

Now I have what looks like two identical pictures for each, and have yet to figure out the software that came with the camera so I can change things. I can SEE them, but haven't figured out the edit features.

Also new, I've got Photoshop 7 and don't even know the first thing about it. Looked in the "Help" just for white balance and it's not even listed.

I shot 37 pictures, with tons of time on the battery just changing around the settings, and saw only one mark left on the battery at the end of the evening.

Is it just that the camera is an energy hog and I'm going to need to get 10 batteries a day for Disney World? Or did the battery come only partially charged? (But it showed full when I put it in yesterday. . .)

Hrumph.

I say again: I know nothing.

No, wait, I do know something. I should have bought the 18-125. I miss that zoom something terrible.

Have I whined enough?



yeah, I know.

I have a great new camera and just need some time to figure it out.

If anyone can give me some pointers, the more specific and "for-dummies" the better! Here is one sample from tonight's attempt.
Yellow, noisy, blurry, you name it. What should I keep in mind for next time?

Oh, and I guess it's the compression, but making them smaller makes them WORSE.

Here is a resized, awful pic:

And here is link to the uploaded larger one (still really bad, but not as. . .)
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-6/253829/samspin.jpg

I'm going to take a page from Scarlett and declare "Tomorrow is another day" and hope that the soccer field in the morning is a little less demoralizing for this newbie.

 

[JR6ooo4]

your post is the same as 97% of others on their first shoot.

I forget the camera and the lens you have. remind me for more details..

RAW never hurts if you have enough memory (and processing time) so that was good.
Please send me the raw file of your favorite shot and I can show you some editing tips. Private message me or my email is in my profile.
I'm not sure if PS7 will work with raw. I use cs2, it was $150 upgrade from PS7 at the full bestbuy price. There are many other AW editing programs and everyone has their favorite. Maybe RAW shooter essentials...

EIther way with RAW you will be able to (in one click) correct the yellow cast. If the one-click settings do not look good then you can use a custom setting. All with no loss in picture quality.

Mikeeee

 

[ndelaware]

The XT is not an energy hog, as a matter of fact Canon was able to cut the battery size in half compared to the the Digital Rebel. The battery does not come fully charged. A fully charged battery will get you about 600 shots with out the flash and 400 with the flash. If you are going to take more than 500 shots a day in WDW you will need to buy a second battery.

Is this your first DSLR? If so, why wouldn't you start out with the white balance set to auto. Or if you are looking to learn the camera try several different white balance settings and see which one works the best inside the rink. If you want to take some of the guesswork out of which white balance setting to use in these situations when you only get one chance, you need to buy a "white card" and learn how to use it.

The file name on a Canon raw file from the Rebel XT ends in ".CR2". A jpg ends in ".JPG". This is how you tell them apart. If you open the images in Canon's Digital Photo Professional you can easily change the white balance on the RAW images by clicking the W/B button on the toolbar. That will open a small box with a drop-down menu listing all the possible white balance choices.


It looks like your shutter speed was too slow also. The writing on the wall is fairly clear but the girls who are moving are blurry. You may have to up the open the lens a bit more if you can and try to shot at the lowest f/stop available on the lens. This of course means not zooming all the way, which in most less expensive lenses means you are closing down the lens. So instead of shooting at f/3.5 you are shooting at f/5.6 when you zoom the kit lens in. You would have had the same issue with the Sigma lens. It too is a f/3.5-5.6 lens and it has more trouble focusing in lower light situations than a Canon lens.

You definately want to get this book, http://www.amazon.com/Understanding...=pd_bbs_2/104-3902790-1300764?ie=UTF8&s=books It is "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson. It will help you immensly understanding why your pictures look like they do.


One thing to consider until you are more familiar with your new camera, is when you really need a decent shot, maybe not a great shot, but a decent shot, use the "Auto" setting. They may not be magazine worthy but you will have some good pictures from a party or other event that is a once in a lifetime thing.

Good luck and hang in there. Soon you will be taking great pictures like the ones you saw that made you want a DSLR in the first place.

 

[Furgus]

Now this is not too bad....

Alls I did was in PhotoShop was edit the curves. Click the dark eyedropper in the darkest spot, and the white eyedropper in the lightest spot, that would be anywhere on the ice. All these pics can be saved by doing that.
Hope this helps, sorry not much of an explination but I ma very tired and am going to bed.

 

[DemonLlama]

Thank you for the advice and encouragement.

I did charge the battery overnight and had no trouble.

The soccer game from this morning went better, although I did find letting the camera do its thing on auto in sports mode gave me better results than I can set for myself (yet).

Like most other things, I'm one of those personalities that wants to know everything NOW and just have to scale back and try smaller steps at the time.

 

[carolina_yankee]

Great that you got better shots this morning. There's a reason for the automatic modes!!

I definitely encourage following the suggestion for Peterson's Understanding Exposure. You won't need the automatic settings so much after reading. Also, balancing for ice (snow, sand, too) is extremely difficult if you're still figuring out how everything works together. Peterson has great tips on how to manage it.

If you ahve the XT and Canon's Digital Photo Professional that came with it, you have all you need to adjust your RAW images. Here's a link to a great tutorials on DPP (they take about an hour, total, to review).

http://photoworkshop.com/canon/

click on the "tips & techniques" link on the bottom right, and then the option for Digital Photo Professional.

Keep at it. You'll learn so much off of each shot you take.

Dirk