First shots with new Camera

[carmedic]

I have recently purchased a Canon 350D and 75-300mm lens, after reading PMN's advice in another thread, I have read the manual from front to back and back again, then played around taking pics of the dog in the back garden.

having worked out the basics, I ventured down the MAN for a few hours to give it a proper road test.

comments and / or advice would be appreciated

thanks
Chris

[Skyranger912]

Well for your first time they are very good, Some have the haze problem, But thats not something you can change. What settings did you use for these?

Mike (Using same set-up)

[PMN]

What? You paid attention to something I said? You're doomed, I tell ya. Doomed! :diablo:

I have to say, these are excellent for what I assume is a first time out with a DSLR? The composition for the most part is superb, which is often something that takes people a lot of time to get to grips with. They're also generally nice and bright with good colour and contrast. A few are somewhat on the soft side, but judging from these it won't be long until you start either rectifying that or being more selective in what you post.

Very nice work indeed, and I shall look forward to seeing more! Feel free to drop me a PM if I can help in any way.

Paul

[Dan380]

Nice catch on the new EZ 320!

[carmedic]

Thanks for the comments

What settings did you use for these?

Mike (Using same set-up)

I started on full auto, then switched to "P program AE" and played around with the setting to get the best depth of field, also tried the sport mode and landscape mode.

I have a 4GB card in the camera so I was able to take lots of shots of flybe Dash-8 on different settings so I could compare the differences.

as for editing, all I have done is level the horizon ( I have a natural 1 degree lean to the left ) cropped and adjusted the contrast a little

Nice catch on the new EZ 320

there where two new EZ 320's, a new 737-8 for Thompson with new titles and a few new A321's for Monarch ( ex Easyjet )

Feel free to drop me a PM if I can help in any way

I may take you up on that offer as I am struggling with the white balance settings

I'm off to EGGP tomorrow to have another play with it (if the weather is OK)

[PMN]

I may take you up on that offer as I am struggling with the white balance settings

The auto white balance on the 350D is excellent and does a fine job under the vast majority of conditions. It's the one and only auto setting I recommend!

Paul

[carmedic]

The weather was good on Sunday (26/04/09), so I took a quick trip down the M56 to MAN to have another play with the new camera.

rather than start another thread I will post some shots here

again help and / or advice would be welcome

G-VAST

TC-JGS

SE-DIC

G-RJXM

PH-BTE

OO-DJW

OH-LKI

G-OGBD

M-ISLE

G-MCBD

G-FCLK

G-EUPF

EI-REO

EI-DPS

9V-SVN

[T5]

The last batch of shots are good but a few appear oversharpened, hence the jagginess in areas.

[carmedic]

The last batch of shots are good but a few appear oversharpened, hence the jagginess in areas.

I had noticed that after I uploaded them here. On my PC they are saved as 1024x512 pixels, when I uploaded them through photobucket they were resized to 800 x 600

[PMN]

The composition on the last bunch is good for the most part but all look over-processed, and by that I mean they've been artificially adjusted to a point where they don't look natural. They're too bright and too much sharpness has been added. Here are a few of examples of the difference over-processing makes and what it looks like.

The first shot here is basically exactly how it should be. The contrast is good, the image is sharp and clean looking; pretty much as your eye would see it. It looks natural.

When we oversharpen, we see the image starts to take on a very ‘harsh’ appearance. We see white borders around lines of contrast and ‘jaggies’ appearing, which makes the image lose its smooth appearance.

Here’s the same shot with correct sharpening, but brightened too much and with too much contrast in general. A lot of detail is lost in the shadows and highlights and the overall image looks very unlike your eye would see it in real life.

Combining over sharpening with too much contrast gives this:

It’s an extreme example, but does give a comparison of how it should and shouldn’t look. When adjusting the brightness and contrast, try keep the image looking as natural as possible. There shouldn’t be any visible artefacts that make it obvious you’re looking at a photo; it should be as close as possible to how your eye sees the actual aircraft. What program are you using to process? If using Photoshop, try a technique I’ve recently discovered. When you open your image, sharpen first (before cropping and resizing) using Unsharp Mask at 100% with a radius of 0.6. Assuming your image is sharp in the first place (which these all appear to be), those settings should give you a clean, crisp and natural image.

Hope that helps.

Paul

[carmedic]

Thanks for the advice Paul,

I am now starting to feel more comfortable with the camera and the different settings, but need to spend some time learning the processing side

the Software I am using is OLYMPUS Master 2.11W

cheers

Chris

[mike currill]

Whatever lights your fire I guess, the only time I like airliners is when they are flying me away on holiday, absolutely hate them when they are bringing me back though. I have to admit that I like the shots of aircraft with the gear in the process of extending or retracting on any aircraft

[PMN]

Whatever lights your fire I guess, the only time I like airliners is when they are flying me away on holiday, absolutely hate them when they are bringing me back though.

That has to be the most bizarre comment I have ever known anyone post in a commercial aviation photography thread.

Paul

[Grey Area]

That has to be the most bizarre comment I have ever known anyone post in a commercial aviation photography thread.

Paul

Maybe he prefers bizjets?

And who could blame him? :diablo:

[PMN]

Maybe he prefers bizjets?

And who could blame him? :diablo:

As long as it's a BBJ or bigger I don't mind! :diablo:

Paul

[carmedic]

Whatever lights your fire I guess,

If it flies and has an engine then I am intrested

[steve rowell]

Great selection of shots!!!

[JetSet]

I think you're off to a cracking start. I can't afford a Cannon yet and I'm using a FujiFinepix 6500FD with a 300mm lense and for what it is it does very well.

This is when I first started using it

Underexposed


Oversharpened


Unedited


Incorrect shutter speed


Improved using the Aputure setting on the camera






Get yourself to grips with Photoshop because that will be your new best friend in photography.

Keep up the good work

[carmedic]

thanks for the comments Stu

I was at MAN again last week, but the weather wasn't very good
(typical MAN weather )
completly confused myself with the setting and screwed the lot up

regards

Chris

[JetSet]

The other thing I'll mention is that I've found that my camera has a grid overlay setting which really helps in keeping the pics level instead of looking like the aircraft are taxing/landing uphill or downhill as I found in my early shots, so if you have one on your Cannon which I'm sure you will then I would advise using it to help keep things level, which you don't do a bad job of at all but it can save you time when taking the photo rather than "missing the moment" trying to get the level.