DSLR - Beginner

[elmarko]

So,

I've recently purchased a Canon EOS 600D DSLR Camera - with the standard 18-55 stock lens along with a fixed ef50mm f/1.8 II lens (£90-ish one).

Camera

Fixed Lens

Drawing & painting are my main areas I work in, but if I want to commercialise my work I thought I'd need to start taking my own reference photos to draw or paint.

So far I'm a little underwhelmed by it's performace (but I'm frankly unsure if it's my beginner noobyness or the gears fault - I'm guessing the first one).

The main problem I'm having is focus really - the autofocus leaves much to be desired & the manual focus seems last luster (on both lenses), the only thing is when I put the flash on (I tend to get very high quality/in focus images - but then the flash ruins the lighting of the image)

Anybody else have experience with this camera with general use? (not trying anything amazing yet as I've still got loads to learn)

Examples of pics done over the last couple of days - two indoors (The cats), two at Fort Nelson.

Example of increased detail with flash.

 

[theheyes]

Original (RAW just exported as-is)

100% crop

ISO 100. This was with a 500D and a 50mm 1.8.

It's probably your lack of experience which is the greatest factor but to be honest, they don't look that bad to me. Try switching to single point focusing if you think it's missing.

edit - post your settings alongside your photos. Shutter speed could be an issue.

 

[elmarko]

Well, for those I had my iso settings up at 1600 (which I was told, seemingly wrongly was fine for this camera) but after some reading it seems high iso isn't the best friend on this one :O.

Shutter speed is usually between 1/20 or 1/200 - lens aperture at 1.8 usually for the fixed.

On first cat pic.

F4.5
1/13
3200 ISO

Second cat

F4.5
1/15
6400 ISO

Armour Plate

F2.0
1/60
400 ISO

First gun

F2.0
1/1600
6400 ISO

Final cat pic.

F3.5
1/60
400 ISO

 

[theheyes]

That lens isn't great at 1.8. Despite the fact the depth of focus is very thin, it lacks a bit of sharpness and the general image quality is nowhere near what it's capable of.

1/20 is too slow if you're hand holding. I'd say rule of thumb for now with that lens is 1/100 minimum while you're getting to grips with it.

ISO 1600 is fine but it can be a challenge indoors. I suggest tomorrow go for a walkabout while it's bright and shoot at F2.8 or F4.0 and just see what you come back with. If you nail the focus (I would use single point focus mode) you should get some good shots.

 

[theheyes]

Yeah, shutter speeds of 1/15 and 1/13 are way too low. I'm actually surprised they turned out as well as they did to be honest.

 

[SDK^]

The first two shots will be blurred from camera shake, those shutter speeds are too low.
You really should be aiming for matching shutter speed to your focal length, or, 1/60, on people and animals to avoid movement blur.

A comment on your first photo. The background clutter doesn't add anything to the photo. Take the shot with the camera held vertically (portrait) and the subject tightly framed to avoid having to crop out unwanted space.

 

[jaybee]

Your shutter speeds are too low on all of your shots with no flash.

Define "too low"?
When the shutter speed is low enough to cause "camera shake".

What is "camera shake"?
When the camera moves - often a tiny amount - during exposure when the shutter is opening and closing to capture the image. If the camera and hence image moves during this time the subject can appear to be in extreme cases very blurred, or in some cases like your shots, just "soft" or out of focus, or just not particularly sharp.

But if I up the shutter speed the pics come out dark, what now?
Exposing an image correctly is all about a combination of aperture, shutter speed and ISO. You need to find the right balance. If you move to shutter priority and set it higher this may help, but then it may require more ISO and/or larger aperture, i.e. low f stop numbers.

But I really want to take shots indoors with no flash.
Then either buy faster lenses (ones like your 50mm f/1.8 that have large apertures, i.e. low F stop numbers like f/1.8) and use them close to wide open allowing for a lot of light to enter them.
Or buy lenses with image stabilisation which will give the equivalent of a couple of stops of aperture by allowing you to handhold the camera at slower shutter speeds.
Or use a tripod.
Sometimes, none of the above will be enough to capture a live subject that moves indoors without motion blur and/or camera shake in the final image.

There is a general rule - as said above - where on a DSLR with 1.6x crop factor, (google for what this means and read up on it as it will help in future) that you use lenses handheld with shutter speeds no lower than 1/XXth of the lens' focal length x 1.6, where XX is the focal length.
i.e. You have a 50mm lens, then you should not handhold at less than 1/50th of a second x 1.6 (crop factor) = 50x1.6 = 80 = 1/80th

I won't go in to detail on why this is, but if you follow the above general rule, this should give you a good guide to start out with. You can read up on all this stuff as and when you get time. There are plenty of camera forums out there for beginners with loads of advice.

 

[elmarko]

Thanks for all the tips guys, I'll give them all a try tomorrow during the day & report back with more.

Photography hasn't really ever been my thing - as it's just a means to get good reference pictures to then draw/paint - but obviously, I'll need good pictures to make good reference images... arg, another thing to learn from scratch!.