Fireworks at 6pm - canon 350d - real newbie help!

Mattw

Mattw

Mattw

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Joined
15 May 2006
Posts
389
Hi, i bought my first slr on thursday, a canon 350d and havnt had time to play with it properly.

Theres some fireworks locally at 6pm tonight, and i was wondering how best to shoot. from what i have read i need an iso speed of 100, a f of 5.8 and a shutter time of 3-6 seconds depending on firework.

Now i understand that, but how on earth do i set that up on my canon 350d, for example which mode does it need to be on then how do i set that up and save it, so later when i turn camera on its defaulted to that?

Any advice on setting the 350d up will be much appreciated!
 
yes i did search but if you read my question correctly, in summary is how do i use these settings on a 350d or how do i set them
 
no i understand everything in those threads, i just dont know how i set the camera up, or where in the menus i do it
 
this information is all supplied in the manual, hell ive just looked myself and found it in about five seconds..... chapter 5 page 86.
 
ok thats more helpful thankyou. so when i change the shutter speed what does 200 awb mean?

and when someone says set it to 7 f what does that mean
 
Your ISO is set from the menu or by pressing the ISO button on the back (think its the up arrow) - then go to 100 and press set (middle button)

Then set the camera to 'M' on the dial on the top.

Then push the dial (next to the shutter button) to the left (anti clockwise) to change the shutter speed....keep going till you get to whatever length you like (will look something like 6" for 6 seconds)

Then hold the button that says "AV" with a little +/- icon below, whilst holding this scroll the dial left again (or maybe righ) until you get to 5.6 or 6.3 or whatver f stop you are after.

Then you should be set

Though you might want to set it to the timer (if you dont have a shutter release and there are loads of fireworks going off) to do this you press the button below the 'av' one we pressed before until the icon on bottom left of screen changes to a little clock like icon - now when you take a shot it will beep and a little light will flash on the front for 10 second (not sure how to change the length) and it will then take the shot with the settings you chose :)


Hope this helps :D
 
Last edited:
ok now i understand it better, thanks just being playing with the settings and got it nailed now.

yes i have a tripod :)
 
It will take a while to learn about all the settings, etc. I suggest you read through the great tutorials on this forum, read through your instructions a few times and maybe buy a book.

You will need a tripod for shooing fireworks.
 
well i did quite well, got some nice shots thanks for the help guys.

I bought idiots guide to photography for 26p off a popular book website which should be here tomorrow.

Instead of starting a new thread, can someone answer me this.

The 3 main settings that are used in manual mode seem to be iso, exposure and F. but what do these actually mean, i understand exposure time, but on the 350d you can have like 2" which i understand to be 2 seconds, but what is 300, 600, 2000 etc etc?

and what does AWB mean under this number on the LCD display? i think its auto white balance as a guess.

any books anyone would recommend me reading to stop filling this forum with newbie questions?
 
Read the manual, it helped me hugely when I bought my first dSLR.

You may also find this guide useful. It's been updated for the 400D, but 99% of it will still apply. :)
 
Mattw said:
well i did quite well, got some nice shots thanks for the help guys.

I bought idiots guide to photography for 26p off a popular book website which should be here tomorrow.

Instead of starting a new thread, can someone answer me this.

The 3 main settings that are used in manual mode seem to be iso, exposure and F. but what do these actually mean, i understand exposure time, but on the 350d you can have like 2" which i understand to be 2 seconds, but what is 300, 600, 2000 etc etc?

and what does AWB mean under this number on the LCD display? i think its auto white balance as a guess.

any books anyone would recommend me reading to stop filling this forum with newbie questions?
Click to expand...

320, 640 etc are still shutter speeds. 320th of a second - I.E quite fast! all the way upto 4000 on the 350d which is VERY fast, and lets in very little light.

AWB does mean auto white balance yes, well done.The auto white balance does seeem to be very good in the 350. If you ever want to go manual I would recommend taking some white card or paper around with you and trying different white balance settings (found by pressing the 'WB' button, or down arrow)...try a setting and look at the white card with that setting, it may look yellow or blue, if it does then all you colours will be out...so find the setting that makes the card look white, and that will be the correct white ballance for that setting....but remember if you move ANYWHERE then you need to re-do this. You also have problem if you are photographing indoors with the lights on, but also have daylight coming in. This will generally give you two different light sources with two different temperatures and therefore a mixed white ballance :( Its something to bear in mind. You can find loads on the net about white ballance etc... :)
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
try a setting and look at the white card with that setting, it may look yellow or blue, if it does then all you colours will be out...so find the setting that makes the card look white, and that will be the correct white ballance for that setting....but remember if you move ANYWHERE then you need to re-do this. You also have problem if you are photographing indoors with the lights on, but also have daylight coming in. This will generally give you two different light sources with two different temperatures and therefore a mixed white ballance :( Its something to bear in mind. You can find loads on the net about white ballance etc... :)
Click to expand...

Or you can forget about all that and shoot in RAW so you can adjust white balance later on :D
 
My first shots

Well i never got a tripod because my friend forgot to bring it, so i did the best i could. These are my first shots ever with a DSLR, so please go easy :)





 
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