The most wasted 600D ever!

savagesam117

savagesam117

savagesam117

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I have had this Canon 600D for about a year now, and it is the most wasted camera on me! I don't have a clue how to use it, i have read the instructions and they didn't really help. I've looked online no real help either. The reason i got it was because i was going to do photography classes but i just didn't and don't have the time.

I have 2 lenses. The standard 18-55mm and then a big one, 75-300mm

Like i can take a basic picture.. I get the blurry background thing which i like.. But i can never get the full picture nice and clear.. Say for a big shot of a beach or something like that.

Here's a picture I took of a dying flower in my garden the other day. I can point and shoot :D
IMG_2813.jpg

Is there any basic tips that you can give me? So that i get a slight understanding that is at least.
 
Basic tips? Go buy Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson - costs £13.59 from Amazon - best £13.59 you will spend on Photography. Go read it, understand the relationship between Shutter Speed/Aperture/ISO. Learn a little about composition - then come back and post your improved shots :)
 
Personally I've never felt the need to buy a book to learn something (especially in this day and age).

If you're that type of person then fine but books have never been my thing. I learn better by doing and when I need to learn something I can't figure out on my own then I used good old Google :)

However you do it (books or research online etc) understanding how the exposure/aperture and ISO work together etc is pretty essential. Once you have those down then you can wander around and take lots of pics!

My one tip would be this - Take your camera with you everywhere :)
 
Phal said:
Personally I've never felt the need to buy a book to learn something (especially in this day and age).

If you're that type of person then fine but books have never been my thing. I learn better by doing and when I need to learn something I can't figure out on my own then I used good old Google :)

However you do it (books or research online etc) understanding how the exposure/aperture and ISO work together etc is pretty essential. Once you have those down then you can wander around and take lots of pics!

My one tip would be this - Take your camera with you everywhere :)
Click to expand...

For me I still struggle with composing the pic

Yeah of you can take it everywhere. Only last week I came home to a beautiful fire ball sun behind some cloudy. By time I got my camera, switched lenses, got out.. It had gone!

Aperture diameter (f number on lens) and it's effects was hardest thing to get my head round personally
And it's effects on depth of field (how much is in focus) and role distance of objects to lens plays a part in that too
 
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Andy90 said:
Basic tips? Go buy Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson - costs £13.59 from Amazon - best £13.59 you will spend on Photography. Go read it, understand the relationship between Shutter Speed/Aperture/ISO. Learn a little about composition - then come back and post your improved shots :)
Click to expand...

Yet again that book and his methods of metering set me back months. Terrible terrible book imho. Read the sections on ISO, shutter speed and aperture, which you can easily learn better from videos on youtube and wipe your back side on the rest. ;):p
 
Yeah you really don't need to give someone £14 to learn about the basics of exposure and composition. Just google it. Wikipedia is good enough at explaining most of the concepts.
 
I got my first DSLR at Christmas and feel that I'm doing alright...that's without reading any books at all, not even properly reading the Camera manual... I did a heck of a lot of reading though - all of the terminology was completely alien to me, but I was quickly able to absorb a lot of it in and understand it, coupled with actually getting out and shooting things...

I had a trip to Iceland in February where I knew there would be a lot of waterfalls, so I went to practice at some waterfalls in Derbyshire to get to grips with my DSLR and exposure.

There's absolutely tons of things for me to learn and improve on, composition, exposure etc. but I've not done too badly considering I've had a DSLR for the best part of 3 and a half months.

If you don't understand what Aperture means then Google it, that goes for ISO and shutter speed too.... how DOF works etc. all of these will come to you if you read them and go out and experiment by shooting with your DSLR... and try to in lots of different subjects and differing times of the day/night.

I bought Peterson's books and actually found it very helpful, but a lot of it already made sense to me having researched quite a bit on the Internet.

He does explain things quite clearly imo and makes them easy to understand.
 
And I must say having a tripod is an extremely worthwhile investment, not only will it ensure you can take nice sharp pictures by eliminating hand shake you can also take time to compose shots and adjust the composition until its exactly how you want it, or at least the best you can make it... you can then also get into the cool stuff like longer shutter speeds for some dynamic exposures.... then you'll probably want to read up on ND and CPL filters etc. if you like those kinds of photos. :)

You can achieve so much by simply getting out and practicing, trial and error, improve, have fun + repeat.
 
Thanks guys, i'm not one for reading massive text books. I like little definitions and how to's. I learn whilst watching/doing it so i think i'll be taking my learning to YouTube.

But to start, lets get to know some of the terminology!

I think this is going to take a while, there's nothing around where i live to really get any decent pictures, so i think i'll take a ride up to the forest/park and get some photos of the lake and stuff around there.

I also need to invest in a tripod, i borrowed one from a friend and it was so handy.
 
Photography seems extremely complicated until you learn the 3 most important fundamentals of aperture, shutter speed and ISO, including how they are relate to and effect each other.

You need to understand these three things before even picking up a camera, although obviously you'll see the out come of each by taking photos.

I'll keep it simple rather than as if its taken from a text book and try to keep it relative to your equipment.

Aperture
  • An optical hole in which light passes through.
  • The amount of light that passes through the aperture is measured in F/numbers.
Aperture - First effect of an F/number
  • Lower the F/number = Wider the hole & lets more light through. (example f/3.5)
  • Higher the F/number = Narrower the hole and lets less light through. (example f/22)
Aperture - Second effect of an F/number
  • Lower the F/number = Smaller the focus plane before and after the focus point. (example f/3.5)
  • Higher the F/number = Larger the focus plane before and after the focus point. (example f/22)


Shutter speed
  • Shutter speed is the amount of time the sensor is exposed to light.
Shutter speed - The first effect of shutter speed
  • A long shutter speed will expose the sensor to light for a long period of time. (example 30seconds)
  • A short shutter speed will expose the sensor to light for a short period of time. (example 1/4000s - four thousands of a second)
Shutter speed - The second effect of shutter speed
  • A long shutter speed will mean any subject that moves in the frame will be captured for the entire time and result in motion blur. (example 30seconds)
  • A short shutter speed gives the effect of freezing a subject due to a minimal amount of movement time in the frame. (example 1/4000s - four thousands of a second)


ISO
  • ISO changes the sensitivity of the sensor to light
ISO - First effects of ISO
  • A high ISO will make the sensor very sensitive to light (example ISO 12,800)
  • A low ISO will make the sensor less sensitive to light (example ISO 100)
ISO - Second effects of ISO
  • A high ISO will induce digital noise (grain) in the photo due to the amount you are asking from the sensor (example ISO 12,800)
  • A low ISO will have a very small amount of digital noise (grain) in the photo due to the sensor working at optimal performance (example ISO 100)

If any of this has been any help let me know and i'll write up something tomorrow night and explain how each of these functions have an effect on each other :)
 
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After a bit of reading worth having a play at the DSLR simulators online to understand the principles of how aperture, shutter and ISO work together, there is a few about. The Canon one is simple but let's you try the settings in the three main creative modes (manual, aperture priority and shutter priority):

http://www.canonoutsideofauto.ca/play/
 
You'll get a million different book recommendations, but for me "Read this if you want to take great photographs" by Henry Carroll is one of the best-balanced I've seen, easy to read and drills into the stuff you really need to know without getting too technical.

I bought it as a quick reference for composition, but it'd suit an absolute beginner too. Great book and discusses classic photographs too.
 
alexisonfire said:
Photography seems extremely complicated until you learn the 3 most important fundamentals of aperture, shutter speed and ISO, including how they are relate to and effect each other.

You need to understand these three things before even picking up a camera, although obviously you'll see the out come of each by taking photos.

I'll keep it simple rather than as if its taken from a text book and try to keep it relative to your equipment.

Aperture
  • An optical hole in which light passes through.
  • The amount of light that passes through the aperture is measured in F/numbers.
Aperture - First effect of an F/number
  • Lower the F/number = Wider the hole & lets more light through. (example f/3.5)
  • Higher the F/number = Narrower the hole and lets less light through. (example f/22)
Aperture - Second effect of an F/number
  • Lower the F/number = Smaller the focus plane before and after the focus point. (example f/3.5)
  • Higher the F/number = Larger the focus plane before and after the focus point. (example f/22)


Shutter speed
  • Shutter speed is the amount of time the sensor is exposed to light.
Shutter speed - The first effect of shutter speed
  • A long shutter speed will expose the sensor to light for a long period of time. (example 30seconds)
  • A short shutter speed will expose the sensor to light for a short period of time. (example 1/4000s - four thousands of a second)
Shutter speed - The second effect of shutter speed
  • A long shutter speed will mean any subject that moves in the frame will be captured for the entire time and result in motion blur. (example 30seconds)
  • A short shutter speed gives the effect of freezing a subject due to a minimal amount of movement time in the frame. (example 1/4000s - four thousands of a second)


ISO
  • ISO changes the sensitivity of the sensor to light
ISO - First effects of ISO
  • A high ISO will make the sensor very sensitive to light (example ISO 12,800)
  • A low ISO will make the sensor less sensitive to light (example ISO 100)
ISO - Second effects of ISO
  • A high ISO will induce digital noise (grain) in the photo due to the amount you are asking from the sensor (example ISO 12,800)
  • A low ISO will have a very small amount of digital noise (grain) in the photo due to the sensor working at optimal performance (example ISO 100)

If any of this has been any help let me know and i'll write up something tomorrow night and explain how each of these functions have an effect on each other :)
Click to expand...

Having a read through this has really helped my understand. I need to read up on how they effect the composition and that kind of stuff.

I had my camera in my hand playing with the ISO number and i can see how the number effects the 'graininess' of the picture. 12,800!? My camera only goes to 6400!!

And the aperture, i think it's this.. It makes the light change a lot in the picture, from really quite dark to stupidly bright!
 
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savagesam117 said:
Having a read through this has really helped my understand. I need to read up on how they effect the composition and that kind of stuff.
Click to expand...
I would suggest learning how they effect each other before learning how they effect composition.

savagesam117 said:
I had my camera in my hand playing with the ISO number and i can see how the number effects the 'graininess' of the picture. 12,800!? My camera only goes to 6400!!
Click to expand...
The 600D has a max ISO of 6400 but its expandable in the custom function menu to an equivalent of 12,800.

savagesam117 said:
And the aperture, i think it's this.. It makes the light change a lot in the picture, from really quite dark to stupidly bright!
Click to expand...
Aperture will change the "brightness" of a photo because you are adjusting the amount of light that goes through the camera by opening and closing the iris of the lens without adjusting the shutter speed accordingly to balance it out.

You can let lots of light through the lens (large aperture) for a very short time (quick shutter speed) or a small amount of light through (small aperture) over a long period of time (long shutter speed) and get two photos with the same exposure.

How to choose which method comes down to the type of photo you are looking to take. A large aperture and quick shutter speed will give you a frozen image with a small depth of field (the blurred backgrounds). A small aperture and long shutter speed would give you a photo with motion and a large depth of field (foreground, subject and background all in focus).

You increase the ISO when the conditions are too dark to use a quick shutter speed (photos become underexposed). This makes the sensor more sensitive to light, which means you are able to still use a quick shutter speed but still record the detail needed.
 
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