Noob in need of help

[andnowimbroke]

Your eyes can see about eleven f/stops. In other words, you can look outside a window on a sunny day and see the neighbors playing around the house and also be able to see into a cabinet in the kitchen. A camera can only see about half as many f/stops. So it can either see outside the window, leaving the interior of the cabinet black, or be able to see inside the cabinet and "blow out" the windows. The reason I bring this up is just because you think there is enough light for the camera to see and focus on, doesn't necessarily make it so. If you hear your lens hunting for something to focus on, chances are it's too dark and you'll need to turn on a light or two. Other than that, light is light. It's just easier to practice with an abundance of it

[HDNitehawk]

It might be more difficult to get sharp pictures in lower light conditions, you have to raise your ISO so you can apply more shutter speed. You have to open your lens up to a wider F stop (lower number) so you can gain speed. It is a balancing act to accomplish what you want. In bright sunlight you have more options, but bright sunlight sometimes doesn't produce the most interesting pictures. It shouldn't be harder to learn, if this is the only time you have....practice

Pixel Peeping is when you are blowing up or magnifying your picture to see the details close up. I do it sometimes to pick the better picture if I have several that are similar. What you will find is if you take 10 pictures hand held of the same subject, most likely none will be completely identical. Pixel Peeping can be a bad habit and is abused by some people, because you probably seldom crop out a 200 or 300% magnification and use it as a picture.

I would suggest you focus on the basics of exposure. There are tons of websites that have beginner tutorials. Read up on shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

After you understand the three basics, then take on things like blown highlights, auto white balance and other settings.

[neuroanatomist]

Is it more difficult to get good images at night in the home? or is it just the same as day time, just need to adjust the camera accordingly?, because the only real time i have to play around at the moment is at night and I don't know if I'm starting to learn the hard way or I should just wait and start with day time first?

Yes, it's more challenging at night indoors, especially with a kit lens which has a pretty slow aperture. With an f/4 or slower lens, I usually need flash in those conditions (I use a 430EX II and bounce it off the ceilings for softer light, and the flash also provides a less obtrusive AF assist with a red light). Without the flash, you'd need often ISO 3200 or 6400 with an f/4-5.6 lens to get the shutter speed high enough to stop subject motion - usually at least 1/60 s and 1/100 s is better for kids when they're not actively moving.

Personally, when I want to shoot indoors without flash, I use my 35mm f/1.4 lens - that lets in between 8-16 times as much light as your kit lens (3-4 stops faster), which is what's needed to keep shutter speeds high enough with sufficiently low ISO.

[ChadS]

@kickasskev day or night isn't the issue. The problem is nighttime is usually dark. Outside on a partially cloudy day at noon might not seem that bright since the sun isn't directly shining but your camera's exposure might show you're within a stop of full sun.

Pick an aperture and an iso that you can return to. In different lighting situation use the camera's built-in meter to tell you how long an exposure you're going to need to properly shoot a picture (don't worry about what you're pointing your camera at right now - just not something pure white or dark black - a nice mix of colors). The ratio of exposures is how much brighter or darker your light is. After you shoot a while you can set things pretty close by feel.

In broad daylight you might find you're shooting 1/1000 and at dusk you're down to 1/50 for the same ISO and aperture. Your autofocus has that much less light to work with (20x less) and you're going to show 20x more motion blur if you don't crank the ISO to balance.

I'm not sure cranking the iso of the main sensor has any bearing on the autofocus - I don't think it does. So in low light you're going to have trouble with the autofocus without the IR-beam or flash assist.

[wilding81]

Here is a photo that I took today with f/8, 1/1250 and auto ISO which came out at 320

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/67730394/IMG_0036.JPG

Have a look at the full res picture from the dropbox link and you will see what I mean about the image not being very sharp and clear

I used a canon 55-200mm lens at 200mm with my EOS 1100D

I have a steady hand so don't think its my hold, yet im still to test it with a tripod

But like I said before not all images are like this, some are crystal clear

[conropl]

Here is a photo that I took today with f/8, 1/1250 and auto ISO which came out at 320

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/67730394/IMG_0036.JPG

Have a look at the full res picture from the dropbox link and you will see what I mean about the image not being very sharp and clear

I used a canon 55-200mm lens at 200mm with my EOS 1100D

I have a steady hand so don't think its my hold, yet im still to test it with a tripod

But like I said before not all images are like this, some are crystal clear

I assume you mean you are using a 55-250mm. I have one of those and it is not that sharp at 250mm in those situations. However, I looked at the .jpg and it was in good focus for that lens... it was just not focused on the bird. Look at the picture at 100%-200% and move around the shot. What you will find is that there are several branches to the left side of the frame and also under the bird that are in pretty good focus compaird to the feet and branch the bird is standing on. So that means that either the lens needs a micro adjustment in the camera (which I do not believe your camera is capable of) or your focus is locking on something other than what you think it is. If it is an adjustment problem, then it looks like it is front focusing to me.

So this brings up a question: Are you using a single focus point? If not, then one of the other points may be picking up on other objects like the branches. Otherwise, you may need to send the lens and camera in to get them adjusted together.

[wilding81]

Thanks for the reply, its actually a 55-200 lens bought from ebay for approx 80-90 pound their is quite a few of them around, as for the single focus point im not to sure but in the view finder when pressing the shutter switch there is on occasions the little red focus lights flashing on a few things and not just the centre, i'll have a closer look at this, I didnt think that these focus lights would of flashed on manual mode anyway.

[ahab1372]

I agree with conropl. If you see the little red dots pop up somewhere randomly, it means you have all focus points selected. I am not too familiar with the 1100D, but I suppose the button on the top right of the camera back is where you can select the focus point. Push that button and look in the view finder, and you will see all dots light up. Then you can turn the dial wheel to select the one you want (usually the center one).

If you want to capture birds in flight, you may want to switch back to all focus points, and AI Servo.

Arnt

[conropl]

If you are seeing more than one red square light up, or a square that is not in the center; then you have it set in mode that lets the camera choose the focus point. The problem with that is it may chose to focus on something that you do not care about and your subject will be out of focus. In the case of a bird in a tree, there are many options for tagets (branches) at different depths and the camera may pick one in front of or behind your subject which will leave what you want to see fussy. I suspect this is what is going on.

So it sounds like you have the camera set to auto select focus points. If you want to focus on a specific subject in the frame, then set it to "Spot AF" and manually select a point that lines up with the subject. However, for simplicities sake, if you want the most accurate focus, then stick with the point in the center or one adjacent to it.

Otherwise, set to "Spot AF" and keep the center point selected. Then put the center point over the subject and push the shutter button half way down to focus; then holding the button to maintain the focus, recompose (reframe), and take the picture. This is probably a good place to start until you get more used to the controls to move points around.

I guess my main point here is to take control to force the camera to focus where you want and do not leave it up to the camera to randomly determine where/what it is going to focus on (it seems random sometimes anyway). The camera is capable of so many neat things, but you can not turn over total control or you get what you get.

I hope that helps.

[wilding81]

If you are seeing more than one red square light up, or a square that is not in the center; then you have it set in mode that lets the camera choose the focus point. The problem with that is it may chose to focus on something that you do not care about and your subject will be out of focus. In the case of a bird in a tree, there are many options for tagets (branches) at different depths and the camera may pick one in front of or behind your subject which will leave what you want to see fussy. I suspect this is what is going on.

So it sounds like you have the camera set to auto select focus points. If you want to focus on a specific subject in the frame, then set it to "Spot AF" and manually select a point that lines up with the subject. However, for simplicities sake, if you want the most accurate focus, the stick with the point in the center or one adjacent to it.

Otherwise, set to "Spot AF" and keep the center point selected. Then put the center point over the subject and push the shutter button half way down to focus; then holding the button to maintain the focus, recompose (reframe), and take the picture. This is probably a good place to start until you get more used to the controls to move points around.

I guess my main point here is to take control to force the camera to focus where you want and do not leave it up to the camera to randomly determine were/what it is going to focus on (it seems random sometimes anyway). The camera is capable of so many neat things, but you can not turn over total control or you get wat you get.

I hope that helps.

Yeah all this helps, have just set it to manual focus spot and only the centre spot lights up now, will try some more shots tomorrow when i get in from work, thanks for everyone's help much appreciated.



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