My 550D :D

Kage

Golden Master
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I finally built up the courage to go and get a camera yesterday after around 2 years of researching, and messing about. I finally feel like I have something I'm going to take a lot of use of.

Photography is something I've been wanting to get into for a while, but never had a cam to make use of it, and almost been too scared to delve into a system. Seriously.

This is my first camera apart from phone cameras, so its a massive step up, but one I'm going to use with full force.

Just taking shots of it in auto mode is breathtaking seen at full size, and this is only the default 17-55mm

Here is a cropped shot of a tenner I had lying around on my desk I took last night. It had to be less than 1MB in file size, so there is some edge blurring not seen on the file I have. Plus, I've been shooting in RAW on the camera itself:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b96/cf_kage/blownupdetail.jpg

I'm just blown away by it, seriously :eek:
It sees detail I can't even see haha

Like for example (ignore the slight blur from the hand held shot at the time), the fact that underneath the queens head, there are swirls that under magnification say "ten. 10. ten. 10".
The camera can see it, and I can't!

10ten10ten.jpg
 
The 550Ds are very nice cameras, you'll definitely enjoy it. I thought the 550D comes with an 18-55mm, did they change the kit lens?

Two things I'd pick up would be a tripod and the Canon 50mm f/ 1.8 II. Arguably the sharpest lens for the money and comes in at around $100 new.

Have fun!
 
Yes I got mine too! I love it and have taken more pics in the last 2 weeks than I have in all my 24 years combined! Mostly of my son (who's 8 weeks old) but they turn out amazing. Love it!
 
:D Yeah, its pretty amazing!
I was wrong. It is the 18-55mm yes.
I'm hoping to get a better telephoto and a 50mm 1.8 or 1.4 prime soon :)
Love the amount of detail in the shots.

I'm trying to get to grips with all the manual controls, and so far so good. A few problems, but I'm getting there.
 
When I walk around I usually use the Av And Tv (aperture and shutter priority) modes. It makes things simpler while walking around when you don't always have the time to fiddle with full manual controls.
 
The only issue I have with photography in general, is that if you want a sharp picture (for example if you are taking portraits of a group), you have to either have a slow shutter speed which would create blur, have the flash on, which helps slightly but isn't always desired, or increase the ISO which creates noise you don't really want for this kind of shot.

I find that Av for example, when you choose a aperture value, it tends to put the exposures far too slow to hand hold when flash isn't enabled. anything below 1/60th of a second is almost impossible for me to keep sharp. I can just manage 1/50th

ISO 400 and below is fine for cropped shots but anything higher, I can see becoming a problem.

I was taking group shots last night at a party, and I found that I had to use a low f stop value which wasn't the sharpest at full resolution to keep it hand holdable, and fast enough of a shutter to not produce blur from the subjects moving slightly.
They're fine at standard size, but cropped to full, and they aren't sharp at all, with some people going out of focus because of the 5.6F stop I was forced to use.
I used the portrait feature as well to test that, which produced the same results as doing it on Av, with a low F/stop of 5.6 to keep things fast

Maybe the exposure compensation will help slightly but I haven't really messed with that, and also a faster lens I'm guessing
 
The only issue I have with photography in general, is that if you want a sharp picture (for example if you are taking portraits of a group), you have to either have a slow shutter speed which would create blur, have the flash on, which helps slightly but isn't always desired, or increase the ISO which creates noise you don't really want for this kind of shot.

Get a real flash, then make a diffuser out of some white material. Could be anything, I've used styrofoam cups before. It helps tons when taking portraits.

I find that Av for example, when you choose a aperture value, it tends to put the exposures far too slow to hand hold when flash isn't enabled. anything below 1/60th of a second is almost impossible for me to keep sharp. I can just manage 1/50th

There are tricks to holding it steady. The easiest thing to do is rest your arm on a table or something if possible. If nothing is available to lean on, then lean back and press your elbow into your chest. It should help somewhat.
 
Thanks Foothead :)

Yeah, there is a lot I need to explore I think. When doing quick shots like at a party though, but you still want clear pictures, it is incredibly hard to do.
The shots have worked out fine on Facebook however, since they are cropped to the extent that you can't see any blurring.
 
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