Superwide Angle Lens

snips86x · 20 Jan 2013 at 18:03

PU7E said:
I made the same mistake yesterday, went out in the snow to try and take some scenic snow shots with my new camera, got back and all but 2-3 aren't blurry, I checked the settings and I had the camera on multi AF

On the bright side I have lots of pics of in-focus branches!!!

lol

To be honest, I think some of the shots I've taken I've done so with the wrong lens. I need to use the Tokina 11-16 for landscape shots and the macro for the closer shots as that is what it's there for.

Once I've got my Canon 70-200mm F/2.8 NON IS, it should be easier as that would also do reasonable close up shots. Obviously not to the macro standard mind.

I do think however, it's learning to use the lens. All lenses are different and they cannot all be used in the same way. I'm sure I'll get there in a few weeks. Still a little confused over the comment above about the aperture & focusing distance, may have to do more reading.

King4aDay · 20 Jan 2013 at 18:04

The reaosn the riverbank shot doesn't work is because once again you've used F4 and focused right in front of you. Stick it on F8 or 11 and use hyperfocal distance for wideangle landscape shots.

oldbag · 20 Jan 2013 at 18:08

I have this lens. It's nice but tends to vignette at full 11mm.

snips86x · 20 Jan 2013 at 18:13

King4aDay said:
The reaosn the riverbank shot doesn't work is because once again you've used F4 and focused right in front of you. Stick it on F8 or 11 and use hyperfocal distance for wideangle landscape shots.

The issue I have with using f8 is the compensation you have to make on the shutter speed due to loss of light, hence using f/2.8-4. When you start reducing the shutter speed, you get motion blur which requires the use of a tripod.

oldbag said:
I have this lens. It's nice but tends to vignette at full 11mm.

I found that the petal hood gets in the way too if it's put on the wrong way round. :confused:

You can see it wide open.

oldbag · 20 Jan 2013 at 18:14

snips86x said:
I found that the petal hood gets in the way too if it's put on the wrong way round. You can see it wide open.

I don't use it, would it improve vignetting if I did?

ianh · 20 Jan 2013 at 18:33

snips86x said:
The issue I have with using f8 is the compensation you have to make on the shutter speed due to loss of light, hence using f/2.8-4. When you start reducing the shutter speed, you get motion blur which requires the use of a tripod.

That's when I'd start increasing the ISO. You're shooting that middle picture at ISO200 so you could go to ISO 800 and keep the same shutter speed, although your shutter speed was 1/640th which is fast enough that you could just drop the Aperture to F8 on that particular shot and still shoot down to 1/100th quite easily avoiding motion blur.

PS I'm not sure how the petal hood can seen when it's on "backwards" as it sits behind the glass??? The only way it can be seen is when it's fitted normally like the pic on the right -

snips86x · 20 Jan 2013 at 18:38

ianh said:
That's when I'd start increasing the ISO. You're shooting that middle picture at ISO200 so you could go to ISO 800 and keep the same shutter speed, although your shutter speed was 1/640th which is fast enough that you could just drop the Aperture to F8 on that particular shot and still shoot down to 1/100th quite easily avoiding motion blur.

PS I'm not sure how the petal hood can seen when it's on "backwards" as it sits behind the glass??? The only way it can be seen is when it's fitted normally like the pic on the right -

Ok, I think I may have to start experimenting.

The largest parts of the petal hood were on the right and left, not top/bottom.

9designs2 · 20 Jan 2013 at 18:43

snips86x said:
The issue I have with using f8 is the compensation you have to make on the shutter speed due to loss of light, hence using f/2.8-4. When you start reducing the shutter speed, you get motion blur which requires the use of a tripod.

I found that the petal hood gets in the way too if it's put on the wrong way round. You can see it wide open.

Hmmmm back to basics I think.... looking at the second shot, it was 1/640 sec, F4 and ISO200.... and 11mm focal length. Focus again was near point.
Why ?
1. Focus on the tree across the river, with centre only.
2. Set F8, this will give you two stops lower speed around 1/160th
3. Dial in +1 stop compensation, (because of the snow) will drop you to 1/80th..take shot review histogram, adjust or bracket a few extra shots.

You can always push the ISO up to 400 (or higher) to get 1 stop back if you worried.
BUT you should be able to hand hold twice the lens focal length. In this case 1/20th, let place safe and say 1/30th...... Practice your technique, and find something to lean against for support...... or take a tripod.

King4aDay · 20 Jan 2013 at 18:47

snips86x said:
The issue I have with using f8 is the compensation you have to make on the shutter speed due to loss of light, hence using f/2.8-4. When you start reducing the shutter speed, you get motion blur which requires the use of a tripod.

Never used a 7D but pretty sure the middle ISO settings are pretty noise free - up the ISO a bit. Plus, with proper technique you can get sharp shots hand-held as slow as 1/10th of a second with a superwide.

snips86x · 20 Jan 2013 at 18:50

9designs2 said:
Hmmmm back to basics I think.... looking at the second shot, it was 1/640 sec, F4 and ISO200.... and 11mm focal length. Focus again was near point.
Why ?
1. Focus on the tree across the river, with centre only.
2. Set F8, this will give you two stops lower speed around 1/160th
3. Dial in +1 stop compensation, (because of the snow) will drop you to 1/80th..take shot review histogram, adjust or bracket a few extra shots.

You can always push the ISO up to 400 (or higher) to get 1 stop back if you worried.
BUT you should be able to hand hold twice the lens focal length. In this case 1/20th, let place safe and say 1/30th...... Practice your technique, and find something to lean against for support...... or take a tripod.

Yeah, think your right. Like I said though, you 'learn' the lenses you buy. You cannot just pick it up and use it like your a pro, you have to take time. This is what I think I'm missing, is the spending the time to learn the lens.

My macro is spot on, 100% with that, so it's got to be this.

ianh · 20 Jan 2013 at 18:55

snips86x said:
Ok, I think I may have to start experimenting.

The largest parts of the petal hood were on the right and left, not top/bottom.

Just to be clear, by "hood on backwards" I mean like this -

I see your in Wiltshire and I'm in Swindon so if you fancy a meet up to compare 7D's at any time then my email is in the trust on the bottom right.

9designs2 · 20 Jan 2013 at 19:01

snips86x said:
Yeah, think your right. Like I said though, you 'learn' the lenses you buy. You cannot just pick it up and use it like your a pro, you have to take time. This is what I think I'm missing, is the spending the time to learn the lens.

My macro is spot on, 100% with that, so it's got to be this.

To be honest nothing I said is special to the lens... it's technique for all lenses.
I've never felt I needed to learn a lens..... except perhaps composition with an Ultra wide as you get new option on perspective, when you change your position in respect to the subject.... instead of using it "to get more in".... nothing with exposure and focal points, that's all camera expertise.

ianh · 20 Jan 2013 at 19:16

Hope you don't mind but I took that 2nd picture and ran it through some minor post processing (Lightroom and Photoshop) and it's not that bad - (Click for full sized 1.5Mb pic)

snips86x · 20 Jan 2013 at 19:24

ianh said:
Just to be clear, by "hood on backwards" I mean like this -

I see your in Wiltshire and I'm in Swindon so if you fancy a meet up to compare 7D's at any time then my email is in the trust on the bottom right.

Maybe I didn't mean backwards, but the largest petals were left & right which is why I could see it @ 11mm.

Sure, I'll trust my details.

ianh said:
Hope you don't mind but I took that 2nd picture and ran it through some minor post processing (Lightroom and Photoshop) and it's not that bad - (Click for full sized 1.5Mb pic)

What PP did you use?

I simply run it through LR3 to balance any colours & lighting which may have been missed/badly balanced when I shot it in RAW. I tend not to do much editing as my personal preference. I'll keep taking it till it's right.

ianh · 20 Jan 2013 at 20:42

I'm the same with PP I use it for crop/straightening, exposure and WB correction (some Lens correction if required) and then PS for sharpening, denoising and resizing for web.

On your pics i did the following

Lightroom 4 - Exposure +1, WB warmed and slighly purple tint, contrast up and slight highlights/shadows tweak then Export to PS CS3.

PS CS3 - Unsharp Mask and resize for web.

With that pic the main thing was it'd metered on the snow which under exposed the image. If it'd metered on the river it'd have over exposed and blown the highlights so with snow pics it's a difficult balancing game (found the same on black & white stripped cars at the Autospeed show). I ended up metering on something mid-range like my hand or the carpet which helped out a lot.

James J · 21 Jan 2013 at 01:48

Shouldn't need that much PP, but I'm turning into an "on camera snob"

Have a read about exposure compensation and how it affects snow pictures. If you have the exposure bang on using the camera, the processing yields cleaner results.

englishpremier · 4 Feb 2013 at 16:34

Is it me or is there loads of CA in that second shot?

Edit - it's probably just the purple tint that was added PP