camera & photography crew...

[mrpink]

Originally Posted by STANG KILLA SS

face book cant tell the difference between a 200 lens and a 2000 lens....

This should work out just fine for you then.....

post up some of your results.




p!nK

[STANG KILLA SS]

well after all the suggestions im kind of looking at 30D and the Xti. leaning towards teh Xti for price. havent looked at any nikons.

one thing i cant find is on te Xti. can i set it to full auto so it takes care of everything. but still set the focus like i want. ie set the focus with the seperate focus button ahead of time. then just mash the shutter button whenever i want to take a pic. with breaks in between etc. since my focal length will always remain the same. so a newb can grab it and just button mash teh shutter and capture fast pics of action. no focusing required? all in full auto. or is this a fuction of the manual setting only?

[slimeball]

Originally Posted by STANG KILLA SS

well after all the suggestions im kind of looking at 30D and the Xti. leaning towards teh Xti for price. havent looked at any nikons.

one thing i cant find is on te Xti. can i set it to full auto so it takes care of everything. but still set the focus like i want. ie set the focus with the seperate focus button ahead of time. then just mash the shutter button whenever i want to take a pic. with breaks in between etc. since my focal length will always remain the same. so a newb can grab it and just button mash teh shutter and capture fast pics of action. no focusing required? all in full auto. or is this a fuction of the manual setting only?

I use a 40d and for I have been using this focus method for years. It s all set up thru the menus. I would def recomend a 30d or a 40d, used if you can find them. The 40d can fire off ~6.5 FPS (depending on settings).

The reason this focus setting works and works very well is that you can leave your camera in AI mode (continuous focus) all the time. When you need to track your focus you can just hold the button down with your thumb and fire away at the shutter. When you need to lock your focus you can press the button, set your focus and let it go and fire away. There is no need to ever switch your focus settings between "AI" and "One shot". IMO this is the best way to have your camera setup for action shooting. Once you get use to it you will never go back!

You can use this mode in any mode except for automatic..no worries tho you dont have to use manual. 98% of the time I use AV mode, or aperture priority..basically you set your aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed for you. I like blurry backgrounds and fast shutter speeds so I set my aperture big (smaller number) and it gets faster shutter speeds. Great for action shots.

I started out with an xti but I quickly out grew it..as it was very limiting for what I needed it for. I guess it just depends on what you want or need.
You wont be disappointed with a xxD series camera..but buy used and save money for good glass.

One of the best lenses I ever had was the 70-200mm F4L..that was my go to lens..even got more mileage than my 100-400mm F4.5-5.6L lens. You can crop a 200mm F4 image and can get a just as good, if not better pic than a 400mm F5.6 image and the lens is a fraction of the cost of the bigger heavier lens.

[STANG KILLA SS]

killer info. you sound like your doing exactly what i want.
right down to the blury backgrounds with crisp action.
this is what im after (me in the pic)
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6233481_n.jpg

ive found a Xti with a 200mm lens for cheap. i may bite on it.
any more info you can give on the hold with thumb method, and single press focus method would be greatly appreciated. (i wonder if the xti has the hold thumb/focus feature)

and also how to set up camera in the AV mode. what about ISO and all that other stuff i dont understand.


some how to's would be great!

[mrpink]

Originally Posted by STANG KILLA SS

killer info. you sound like your doing exactly what i want.
right down to the blury backgrounds with crisp action.
this is what im after (me in the pic)
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6233481_n.jpg

ive found a Xti with a 200mm lens for cheap. i may bite on it.
any more info you can give on the hold with thumb method, and single press focus method would be greatly appreciated. (i wonder if the xti has the hold thumb/focus feature)

and also how to set up camera in the AV mode. what about ISO and all that other stuff i dont understand.


some how to's would be great!

To get an image like to one you posted, you will need to be shooting at a minimum of f/4 (to get that shallow depth of focus), and a shutter speed of 1/500 or faster (to freeze the water and other motion). ISO would most likely be set to 200 in a situation like out on a lake. If I had to guess on that photographers settings I would say 1/1000th, f/2.8, ISO 200. There is the chance that the effect was created in photoshop.

Post up a link to the package you are looking at.... The words cheap and sharp usually do not go together when talking about lenses (save for the 50mm 1.8 or nifty fifty as cannon goofballs call it)

L glass is $$$$$, but very nice.





p!nK

[Offroader5]

Originally Posted by STANG KILLA SS

killer info. you sound like your doing exactly what i want.
right down to the blury backgrounds with crisp action.
this is what im after (me in the pic)
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6233481_n.jpg

ive found a Xti with a 200mm lens for cheap. i may bite on it.
any more info you can give on the hold with thumb method, and single press focus method would be greatly appreciated. (i wonder if the xti has the hold thumb/focus feature)

and also how to set up camera in the AV mode. what about ISO and all that other stuff i dont understand.


some how to's would be great!

Originally Posted by mrpink

To get an image like to one you posted, you will need to be shooting at a minimum of f/4 (to get that shallow depth of focus), and a shutter speed of 1/500 or faster (to freeze the water and other motion). ISO would most likely be set to 200 in a situation like out on a lake. If I had to guess on that photographers settings I would say 1/1000th, f/2.8, ISO 200. There is the chance that the effect was created in photoshop.

Post up a link to the package you are looking at.... The words cheap and sharp usually do not go together when talking about lenses (save for the 50mm 1.8 or nifty fifty as cannon goofballs call it)

L glass is $$$$$, but very nice.





p!nK

One other thing about that pic...the quality of the out of focus background. You may think..."well it's out of focus, so why would I need to worry about quality in that?" If you use cheap lenses and stop them down to that aperture to blur the background in an effort to make the subject the first place your eye goes to when viewing, you have to also worry about bokeh (background blur).

How well a lens can produce bokeh is based alot on the quality of the glass and construction of the lens. Sometimes you will get little circles or swirls or some other shape from every little pinpoint of light reflection in the background if the lens doesn't do this well. You don't get a nice blurred background like the one in that pic...but instead would end up with a background that looks "busy" and sometimes can be bad to the point of it being more noticeable than the subject in the pic.

There are even some good lenses out there that have issues, but you're more likely to get bad results with a bad lens. Best thing to do is find as many reviews on lenses in the focal length and type that you're in the market for...across many brands...and then make a decision.

[STANG KILLA SS]

man you guys are killer. kick ass. thanks so much.

especially pink for the settings. a place to start for sure! i would have just been guessing. if you feel like divulging any more info it would definatly be appreciated!

offroader thanks to you too! i had no idea blur had a quality too. and that it was the actual lens that creates ( or doesnt) that quality.

my current point and shoot is 12X optical. i would say for the wake boarding shots we use somewhere around 10x. what mm zoom lens would i need to acheive that magnification?

[Grizzly4x4]

Here are some tubing pics taken with my Nikon D70. I had the 18-70mm lens on it and it is zoomed out all the way to 70 so this is as close as I can get to the subject with that lens. This was shot at F4.4 but it was set to auto and my wife took these, she is no expert photographer but she is learning quickly when to take pics.

If you want to be able to zoom in closer you should look at about 150mm lens. I have a 18-200mm lens for sporting events and it can zoom in tight about halfway across a football field so that is more that you really need unless you want to see the expression in their eyes..

[Wicked_Jester]

also look for a camera that has the 3d-tracking focus area setting it helps out a lot when shooting moving targets

[Donziikid]

Originally Posted by STANG KILLA SS

my current point and shoot is 12X optical. i would say for the wake boarding shots we use somewhere around 10x. what mm zoom lens would i need to acheive that magnification?

What is the point and shoot brand and model name/number? Only way to really equate that is by knowing the range the lens equivalent to. Most point and shoots actually have the mm equivalent printed on the lens itself.

Another quick way of testing would be take a shot at each magnification level it is capable of and then opening each image up in a photo-viewer and looking at the information. That information will tell you at what focal length the image was taken, along with what f/stop.

As with purchasing any camera I would suggest you go look at the different brands and models at a store before making a final decision--whether it be a dedicated photography store or a Sams Club/Costco/WalMart which can carry a few different entry level DSLRs. How the camera fits and feels in your hands makes a whole lot of difference when you spend a lot of time with it. If the adjustments are not easy to get to on-the-fly and you have to change something NOW! to get that perfect shot, fiddling with the navigation menus will get mighty frustrating.

I shoot with a Nikon D2X and Nikon D100 not only because I like the quality of images those two cameras produce, but also because of how they feel in my hands while shooting. The button layout and menu style of Canon cameras never sat with me and without testing/feeling them physically before hand, I think I may have been rather disappoint if I would have gone with a Canon.

I guess as they say: try before you buy.

Just my $0.02.

[Grizzly4x4]

Here is an F2.8 picture. I used this aperature setting to blur out the background and make the subject of the picture really grab your eye.

Originally Posted by STANG KILLA SS

killer info. you sound like your doing exactly what i want.
right down to the blury backgrounds with crisp action.
this is what im after (me in the pic)
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6233481_n.jpg

ive found a Xti with a 200mm lens for cheap. i may bite on it.
any more info you can give on the hold with thumb method, and single press focus method would be greatly appreciated. (i wonder if the xti has the hold thumb/focus feature)

and also how to set up camera in the AV mode. what about ISO and all that other stuff i dont understand.


some how to's would be great!

My guess is that the pic was taken between F2.8 and F4. In my other pics that were taken at F4.4 you notice the background is not blurred. That is because of the wide viewing angle. If the guy who took your pic has a 200mm lens he might have gotten the background blur at F4 because he is zoomed in tight on you.

Aperture: Low numbers (F2.8 ) give a blurred background, also known as a short depth of field. High numbers keep the background in focus. I shoot around F4-F4.5 most of the time.
ISO: Low numbers (200) for sunny days and high numbers (800) for lower light situations without using a flash.

When I take pics I set the camera to aperture priority ("A" on the dial) most of the time so I can choose my depth of field. This lets the camera choose the shutter speed to match. The sports setting (little running guy) works well also but doesn't let me change the white balance if the lighting is not perfect. You want to choose the white balance to match the shooting conditions, sunny, cloudy, shady, etc.

My best advice is practice, practice, practice, and take lots of pictures. I will take 200 pictures most times and will occasionally take 400 pictures at one of my daughters soccer games. Play with the settings, then after downloading them study them to understand what the settings and the shooting conditions were and what resulted in good pictures. Don't expect to get pics like your friend by taking ten pictures. I go by the rule of 100 pictures will get you 10 good ones and one great one.

[STANG KILLA SS]

man the info keeps pouring in. im learning so much. who knew RCC was a SLR boot camp for dummies! (me)

griz: thanks for the photos of the tubers but those settings arent what im after. they look just like my $400 point and shoot. but the info about the lens 70mm zoom is invaluable. i definalty woiuld like more zoom than that.

Donzi: ill get the model for you. and ill check the lens. thats a great idea. i didnt think of that. i dont think it give you a read out of what magnification your at like some of them do. there would be no way to take a pic at 9x, 10x, 11x etc. yeah ive heard lots of people say the Xti is too small. pinky has to wrap underneith the body. but that a battery grip fixes that. (hey im learning the terms! ;) )

griz: thats more like it! that looks more like a $2-4k setup should imo! great info on the ap and iso! man that REEEALLY helps this newb. ive heard lots of people mention that apeture priority, and that alot of people like that mode. thanks! yeah like anything you have to practice to get good. awesome soccer shot btw ;)

[slimeball]

That is the great thing about digital photography...you can practice, practice and practice is long as you have card space.

When purchasing a lens the age old saying "you get what you pay for" really applies. Two things you want to look at is the the F value..or how big the aperture can get, the lower the first number is the better but it can get confusing because there are usually two F numbers..for instance-A 100-400mm F4.5/5.6. What this means is at 100mm the biggest aperture you can get is F4.5 and at 400mm its F5.6 and the aperture goes from 4.5 to 5.6 gradually as you go up thru the range. Sooo bear in mind, if a lens is advertised at 28-135mm F3.5-5.6 you might think that at F3.5, "great I can get some good shutter speed and bokeh (background blur) with that"..but its only going to stay F3.5 at 28mm, once you zoom it its going to go up exponentially. ...make sense?

A far as range. Camera terminology deals in width rather than distance. One of my lenses is 70-200mm. So the Widest I can get is 70mm (the opposite of zoomed all the way out)..now 70mm is not very wide. A good wide angle is around 20mm or less (there is crop factors and what not when dealing with different cameras and sensors but that's a whole other book and a difference of several thousand dollars!). The opposite side of the 70mm is the 200mm. That's how far you can zoom out. Anything over 200mm is probably going to have some sort of image stabilization. I find 200mm is a pretty good range and you really don't need more than that on a consumer level...unless your forte taking pics of birds or wildlife then you might need more range.

Your ISO setting is another important thing. ISO is going to let your camera take in more light and increase your shutter speeds. Think of it as different kinds of films for your camera. This is used in less than ideal lighting, for instance in a gymnasium or ice rink. No matter what camera you get you need to read about how well it can handle high ISO because a lot of cameras advertise high ISO but the pics generally degrade after 800 ISO. I believe the xti can handle about 800 ISO before suffering image noise (pics start to look grainy). I can run 1600, even 3200 ISO on my 40d and get a usable image but I rarely ever need to because I like to shoot outdoors and in the sun.

[Offroader5]

Yeah, aperture priority is the setting I use the most here too. Two of the biggest things in my thought process when I'm going to snap a pic is...how bright is it and what in the pic do I want to be the focal point (what will be the most focused)? Using AP lets me dictate the depth of field (focus depth) so I can fine tune to get that focal point to pop out at you. First I figure out the lighting and set my ISO accordingly. Once you've got that set you can chose your aperture, the camera then decides what to set the shutter speed at.

This is good for setting up the background blur, but you also have to remember that because it's setting that shutter speed automatically, it may not be the shutter speed you're after to stop motion. You may need a faster shutter speed to stop motion than what the camera wants to give you on AP. You can then try using the TV setting on the camera which is shutter priority. Now you can set a faster shutter speed to catch the action, and the camera will choose the aperture to match based on available light.

The bottom line is once you get the camera, it's just going to take a bunch of trial and error with settings so that you know what they do in different situations. Once you do that, you'll figure out how to push the settings past where they "should" be to get the more artistic shots or forced blur/motion shots.

[Grizzly4x4]

Originally Posted by STANG KILLA SS

griz: thanks for the photos of the tubers but those settings arent what im after. they look just like my $400 point and shoot. but the info about the lens 70mm zoom is invaluable. i definalty woiuld like more zoom than that.

griz: thats more like it! that looks more like a $2-4k setup should imo! great info on the ap and iso! man that REEEALLY helps this newb. ive heard lots of people mention that apeture priority, and that alot of people like that mode. thanks! yeah like anything you have to practice to get good. awesome soccer shot btw ;)

Yeah, the shots with the 70mm lens aren't that great. Although if I were to crop the 2240x14880 picture rather than just resize it to 700x545 with my cheap image resizer the quality would be better. However I wanted you to see what a non retouched photo would look like with that lens, since your subject will be a similar distance away.

Thanks, I love that shot of Tyler. That was taken with my 200mm lens and zoomed in to 90mm. I don't put the 200mm lens on for boating because it is soo heavy the wife can't hold it for very long. Plus with kids getting in and out of the boat I don't want it getting damaged. That picture does as you say, show you what kind of pics a $4k setup will get you though.

[Donziikid]

Donzi: ill get the model for you. and ill check the lens. thats a great idea. i didnt think of that. i dont think it give you a read out of what magnification your at like some of them do. there would be no way to take a pic at 9x, 10x, 11x etc. yeah ive heard lots of people say the Xti is too small. pinky has to wrap underneith the body. but that a battery grip fixes that. (hey im learning the terms! ;) )

Let me know when you know what it is. I know my P&S Sony has it stamped on the bottom right portion of the lens, but it only tells the aperture, but my Kodak tells me both the aperture and the relative 35mm format lens equivalent (36-100mm).

Not only will a battery grip allow for a little extra wiggle-room, it will also extend your battery life exponentially. I know my D100 was dinky before a battery grip, but I'm glad I got it to not only allow a little extra room, but it also provided a lot more time to shoot due to the extra battery life. I still highly stress you go try a few different body styles from a few different makers before making a firm decision.

Another thing I would like to stress that slipped my mind late last night is a top view LCD. A few of the available cameras that fit in your price range do not have one and the functionality and "usefulness" of one is very hard to say in words. In a lot of shooting situations it is great to be able to quickly glance at your settings before pressing that shutter button all the way down; rather than having to move your camera to view the LCD on the back of the camera and go through all the menus.

Oh, and also AF points.

I would also highly suggest reading up Digital Photography Review on any of the body styles you are interested in. My suggestions would have to be the Nikon D90, Nikon D300 (or D300s) and the Pentax K-x. Canon makes good cameras, don't get me wrong, but they just don't sit right in my hands (again, that "try before you buy" thing).

Good luck.

Cheers,
Kyle

[STANG KILLA SS]

yeah thats a great site. the review for the Xti was 30 friggin pages long! i read 90% of it. the rest was foregn talk to me. very awesome site though.
again thanks for all the help! and keep it coming as you think of it! its second nature to yall, all new to me. every post im learning so much.

[run2jeepn]

A few quotes I found comparing the XTi and 30D..

The self cleaning option and higher resolution is about all the XTi has going for it on the 30D. Others will certainly disagree, saying that its better on little more than the fact that it is newer. If you compare the statistics of the two, you will see that the 30D is superior most capacities. As for the 30D compared to the XTi, it has a higher max shutter speed, faster frame rate, 1/3 stop ISO settings, larger buffer, faster flash sync, spot metering, longer battery life, better build, ISO 3200, and a few more minor features. You decide if thats worth an extra $300. To some, it is not, to others, it makes all the difference.

To continue with what Leopold started... The 30d has a dedicated status LCD, dedicated rear dial, larger and brighter viewfinder, better grip, better interface for most functions, and a few more minor features. It is lacking a relatively ineffective dust removal system, and an extra 2 megapixels.

The XTi is by no means a bad camera- you really need to hold and shoot with each camera to make your decision.

I owned a Rebel XT and have used an XTi, but you couldn't pry my 30d out of my hands.

XTI is just a plastic consumer grade camera that does not even have a glass pentaprism.

For the intended family / amateur use it is a fine camera.

the Rebel is intended for amateurs. That doesn't make it a bad camera at all, just one that many pros wouldn't be as interested in. The 30D, while certainly not on the level of the 1 series bodies, is more professional. It's studier built so it can be banged around a bit more, the mirror mechanism is designed to be fired a lot more, the controls allow for a lot more control to be done a lot more easily. The Rebel is intended more for Aunt Sally to get pictures of the kiddies during the family vacation to Disney World.

Once you press the shutter button, it doesn't make that much difference which camera body you get, they will both produce excellent images.

Before you press the shutter button is another matter. As others have mentioned, I much prefer the ergonomics of the 10D/20D/30D line. Having two dials/wheels (one on the back and the other by the shutter release) to control aperture and shutter speed (manual mode), and exposure compensation (aperture and shutter priority modes) is faster and more intuitive. In some situations, it can make the difference between getting and missing the shot.

If the price was the same, I would pick the 30D any day. Even with the price difference, I would still pick the 30D (or a used 20D).

If you want an awesome camera for under $2k... Get the Canon 7D.. Kicks ass and even shots 1080HD Video....

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-EOS-7D-2.../dp/B002NEGTU6

[mrpink]

The best advice... goto a store and hold each camera. Toggle though the menus, take some test exposures. Really spend some time with each model. You will find one that "fits" you better than others.

Here are a few of my shots at f/2.8 for that creamy background....

My daughter...


At the red bull air races....



This one was a panning shot....



Remember, it isn't as easy as just buying a good camera and pressing the shutter release....




p!nK

[STANG KILLA SS]

great advice pink! unfortunatly all the models i want(and can afford) have long since been discontinued.

love that knife edge shot!