I got my XSi about a month ago and I've definitely been taking a lot more pics. I get clean shots of my son now. It's great. Here are some of the ones I have taken. I spent Christmas with my sister and I played with taking some shots of her orchids. Some are taken with the lens that came with the camera kit and some are with her 28 - 135 mm IS lense. I also took some with her 70 - 300 mm IS lens. I wish I had one of those.

I need to take some time and learn how to play with the camera a lot more. If anyone have comments (GOOD OR BAD) or suggestions, please let me know.

With the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens that came with the camera kit.







With the EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens.





Controlling exposure is something I need to work on. I haven't had a chance to sit down and read more about it. I have a lot of pictures that are too bright with the flash on and very dark without the flash. Work in progress.

 

Looks like you're off to a decent start. Your subjects seem to be in focus and your exposure isn't too far off.

Other than reading a bit more on exposure, shoot in Green Mode (Auto) a bit and review the actual settings used. Take a shot in Auto, look at the settings, then go to manual and use those settings. Then change certain things like aperture or shutter speed and see what happens.

Also, if you have some time to process your images, get Lightroom or at least Photoshop Elements to allow you to tweak your settings. Playing with curves or contrast and saturation can help a lot.

 

Moe,

I've been trying switching between the Green mode and the manual settings. That's how I took a lot of those above. Some of the earlier ones I took were very over or under exposed. I took a few with the flash and I lost a lot of the detail. So, I played a lot.

I definitely need to get Photoshop or something like it. I'm working on it.

And I came to the realization that indoor lighting of most kind sucks for taking pics. I have a lot of photos taken during Christmas day that are dark or very bright.

 

I didn't look at your exif, so I wasn't sure which settings you used. Just keep playing. You can always take more shots if you don't like them.

I'm just now starting to feel more comfortable using my flash. Sure, i was getting some okay pics with it before, but now it's getting used more properly, IMHO. The real trick is exposing for ambient light and using the flash more for fill on the subject. The flash will basically act like a fast shutter speed for the subject, you the slow shutter will expose the background better. The background usually won't come out as sharp because of camera shake, but it's usually good enough to get the scene. That's basically what happens when you shoot a in "night portrait" mode with a P&S (not sure if the XSi has that mode).

 

Indoor shots are tricky. Just keep playing around and you'll see what you need to do to improve. Looks like you're off to a good start.

 

You should certainly pick up Lightroom. It's well under $300 now and will do everything you need to edit your images to bring out the most in them.

 

That's a bit more than I can spend these days. But at some point I will pick it up.

 

Are you still teaching or are you or your wife taking any classes? If so, you can get it for $99.

 

No, not anymore. But I have some options. :wink: I will have to work on it.

 

If you're not going to be taking hundreds of shots at a time, you don't need Lightroom. Photoshop Elements will be good for you to start. Actually Picasa, which is a free download from Google will be fine until you start really shooting, it will handle jpeg just fine. It might also do RAW, but I'll have to look.

Remember to keep your shutter speed to the focus equivalent of the lens. If you're shooting at 70mm, your shutter should be 1/80th. 128mm at 1/125th and so forth.

 

I just started really following this rule of thumb, it works really well.

 

With a IS or VR lens you can cheat two to three to four stops. But first learn this way and then change it up.

 

Will try that. I do have Picasa on my home computer. I like it. I have not really played with it a lot.

I also got that book you recommended, but since my sister is more of a stay at home mom at this point, I gave it to her to read through. I may just get another copy.

 

What's the difference between the EF-S lens and the EF lens? I really like taking pics with my sister's lens. Is there more to that lens or was it just the difference between a 18-55 mm and a 28-135 mm lens? Can you tell I don't know a lot?

 

Check your verison of Picasa, I think they're at v.3 now.

 

EF lenses can be used on any Canon EOS camera. EF-S, can only be used on Rebels and 20D, 30D, 40D and 50D's.

 

Thanks.

 

I'll check when I get home. I think it may be. I downloaded it a few weeks ago. I like it.

 

Picasa has trouble with RAW. It loses the exif data. (At least last time I played with it which was a few months back)

 

I've had mine for almost 3 weeks now, and I'm pleased with my purchase.

If you want to adjust exposure, bright/con, shadows/highlights, curves and other basic things with RAW shots, the Digital Photo Professional app that comes with the camera does a good enough job in a pinch. Most other apps that comes with the camera are useless. If you use a mac, iphoto can also handle RAW just fine, but it can't do curves. I use photoshop on the PC for now.

I registered for a photography class at the local community college - the tuition was under $300, and half the class is teaching you to to do PP in lightroom, so I'll be using the student discount and getting that in the next few weeks

I've only shot a limited number of shots (<20 out of 550+ so far) on full-auto (aka green) - I find I get a lot better shots in 'program' mode with ISO set to automatic most of the time. There's only been one picture I "missed" completely - a portrait that was backlit and I forgot to flip the flash on

The thing that's surprised me the most so far is the battery life - we used it at a pre-xmas event taking about 200 pics of kids sitting with Santa at a holiday party - All handheld, AF & IS on, program mode w/flash, LCD on with the usual display (not live view) and a 4-sec pic review time. Even at the end of the event, the battery gauge still read full

 

^^^^

I am really happy with the purchase as well. The battery life amazed me as well. I think I have taken about 1500 pics thus far and only charged the battery pack once.

 

At NoVA? When does the class start? PM me the details I'd like to attend if it fits my schedule.

 

Yep! PM sent.

 

That's at the Alexandria Campus?

 

Yes

 

Ravi, nice stuff! This is addicting, I should warn you.

You know, we have a contest running right now.....

 

Yeh....it's a good addiction for now. When it really starts costing me time and money, I'm sure I would eat those words. As for the contest....I have a couple weeks to come up with something.

 

I do have version 3. I was playing with it a bit last night.

 

Can we get some more info on this? Is there a chart?

 

http://www.uscoles.com/fstop.htm

 

Thanks Jup. So much to learn.

 

Ravi, I find this site pretty helpful as well. Mostly because it can be specific to the camera.

http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=HomePageAct

 

I would recommend to start with the P mode and adjust the ISO manually, I personally find most of the auto modes to be more or less useless. Then play around with the shutter speed and aperture in manual.

Oh, and don't bother with the built-in flash... it's just too harsh since you cannot bounce it off anything except the object's face, get an external flash (at least a 430 EX) and use a bounce card or diffuser if you take a lot of indoor pictures. It will make a huge difference.

Looks like you're off to a good start judging from those pics. I remember when I first started all my pics are blurry, but then again my 18-55 f/3.5 back then was not a IS version. Once you're comfortable you can look into lense upgrade (don't bother with the kit lenses, go with something like the 17-55 f/2.8 IS, or prime lens if you do a lot of portraits).

 

You can now diffuse the light, with a pop up flash diffuser. Not sure how well it works.

http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Fong-Puff.../dp/B0011000R6

There's also Lumiquest's soft screen, which is one I would buy. I like their products.

http://www.amazon.com/Lumiquest-Soft...m_cr_pr_sims_t

 

Yeah, I've seen similar products. However, the fundamental problem of the light source being too close to the lens/sensor is still there. The light needs to come from a different angle for the picture to look natural (e.g. bounced off the ceiling). The other problem is that you cannot adjust the angle of the built in flash to bounce off objects other than the object's face, the light is still too harsh even with the diffuser. Plus, the range of the built in flash is not great to begin with, with the diffuser it can only get worst. I suppose these products will help, but it's no comparison to an external flash. I think the built-in's were really only meant to be emergency use in the cases where you don't have an external flash handy.

 

No you can't compare it to hotshoe flash, but they help. If a $15 diffuser helps it's a lot better than $150-$200-$400 hotshoe flash for someone just starting. It depends on how far they want to take it. Even with a hotshoe flash you have to play with the light, diffusers, bounce cards or ring flashes.

 

I cut a white piece of plastic (looks like a credit card) that I keep on hand in case I'm stuck somewhere with just the pop up flash. I just hold it in front of the flash on a 45* angle to bounce it off the ceiling. It works quite well! It looks very natural in a small room.

 

That sounds useful. How do you mount it? do you just hold it by hand??

Might be good DIY even for the external flashes that doesn't come with a built-in bounce card

 

http://www.abetterbouncecard.com/

 

It's just a hand held thing. You can use just about anything so long as it's white.