Some Noob Ques:

[adam1093]

Just wanting some pointers from the guys/gals in the know....

Please bear with my ignorance...

1. The higher the "F" number means the more detail that can be seen in the shot?

2. So for landscapes i should be shooting at the highest "F" = F22?

3. High ISO (1600) is good for shooting dimley lit areas like interior home shots?

4. Low ISO (100) is more for night time long exposure type shots?

5. I tried a few test shots at a shutter speed of 1/4000 - these shots came out black way too dark for the scene i shot - typical an outdoor or interior home test shot. Why??

6. If i want to capture a fast moving object what shutter speed is a good one - by this i mean a baby moving around inside or outside - i have a lot of blurry type shots.

7. To freeze a splash scene in water would i use the same shutter speed or a much faster one?

8. Is it best to shoot pics at a lower size say 1500x .... - the smaller the pic the better the quality?

9. Ive shot some at the biggest pic size 3000+ but when zoomed in they look abit noisy

I know most of this will be obvious to some but im starting out and would really like sum advice.

If you could point to what settings would work best ie "av", "tv", "p" etc that would help greatly.

thanks in advance

adam

[SuzyView]

Welcome, Adam. The 400D is quite a nice camera, so you have a good start. I was just curious if you used slr's before and if you had a point & shoot before getting the 400D?

From these questions I would recommend you read your manual completely to get the basics of how the camera works. Then buy the book by Bryan Peterson "Understanding Exposure" which is a standard here. I bought it first thing because I was unsure of what I was doing, even though I've used slr's since I was young. This book really made sense of all the different settings. You can ask for advice here and get great answers, but if you go out and shoot and play with all the buttons and settings, you will definitely learn for yourself.

Your assumptions are good, but nothing replaces experimenting with the camera.

[adam1093]

hey suzy thanks
yea ive read through the manual and nosied around most of the site etc

i previously had a p/s cam but just reached the limits of what i could do with it :(

never used a dslr before but from the fiddling ive done so far im loving it :cool:

i can see why some people initially slated the 400d for its under exposure at times but theyre shooting in auto, which from my limited experience, tells me that this type of cam is best used in manual or in one of the many pre-set functions it has.

just keen to start shooting pics i took for granted with the p/s

[Curtis N]

Adam,
Shutter speed, aperture (f/ number) and ISO are the three factors that determine exposure. It's important to understand the interaction between the three, as well as other ways that their settings can affect image quality.

The Peterson book mentioned is popular, but may not be necessary to get a grasp on the basics. Your local library most likely has a plethora of basic photography books that will illustrate the principles well.

[pagefile]

Just wanting some pointers from the guys/gals in the know....

Please bear with my ignorance...

1. The higher the "F" number means the more detail that can be seen in the shot?

2. So for landscapes i should be shooting at the highest "F" = F22?

3. High ISO (1600) is good for shooting dimley lit areas like interior home shots?

4. Low ISO (100) is more for night time long exposure type shots?

5. I tried a few test shots at a shutter speed of 1/4000 - these shots came out black way too dark for the scene i shot - typical an outdoor or interior home test shot. Why??

6. If i want to capture a fast moving object what shutter speed is a good one - by this i mean a baby moving around inside or outside - i have a lot of blurry type shots.

7. To freeze a splash scene in water would i use the same shutter speed or a much faster one?

8. Is it best to shoot pics at a lower size say 1500x .... - the smaller the pic the better the quality?

9. Ive shot some at the biggest pic size 3000+ but when zoomed in they look abit noisy

I know most of this will be obvious to some but im starting out and would really like sum advice.

If you could point to what settings would work best ie "av", "tv", "p" etc that would help greatly.

thanks in advance

adam

I will do my best to help you with some of this.

1. f/4 You get burred background (Bokeh) f/16 you see more of what's behind what you focused on.

3. You can if there is no light at all. If you have some light you could use 400 with a tripod. Anything that moves will be blurred from them moving or you moving the camera (camera shake), you will have a longer exposure time. Use the flash

4. ISO 100 is for bright sun light.

5. At 4000 the shutter is not open very long to let any light to get to the censer. Its way to fast for low light.

6. 100 is good for that, as long as you have good light or you make use of your flash.

7. 400 is faster than 100. If you have good light go as fast as you need. Do some test shots and see what works for you and the light you have. To freeze water movement

7. 250 or faster would be good. Lean how to do it from this posted by Johny. http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=110

8. That will not make any change to the IQ. Larger the better for print size and editing.

All of everything you asked can be found here. Do a seach and you will get more info on everything you want to know.


A few good books that will be of a big help to you.

1. Magic Lantern Guide: Canon EOS XTi/400D (not out yet for the XTi but soon)

2. Canon EOS Digital Rebel: Digital Field Guide

3. The Digital Photoraphy Book by: Scott Kelby

4. Understanding Exposure by: Bryan Peterson

[PhotosGuy]

Help - Where do you start!?
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=135107

Virtual Camera
http://www.photonhead.com/simcam/

Canon: = Enjoy! Digital SLR camera =
http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/enjoydslr/index.html

Thomas Hawk's 10 Tips for the New Digital SLR Photographer
http://thomashawk.com/2006/04/10-tips-for-new-digital-slr.html

[GrendelZ]

1.The "f" stop refers to the apeture opening.The higher the # i.e. f22 f16...the smaller the opening thus the less light will hit the sensor.You need to compensate for this with your shutter speed/iso.Typically your meter will give you a reading that will help you adjust.

2.The apeture also controls your "depth of field" or amount of the scene that is in sharp focus.The lower the number the tighter the focal plane,and thus less of the scene in focus.Its a trade off as to how high a number you can use,depending on the amount of light you need a shutter speed of at least 1 over the focal lenght of your lens to avoid camera shake.Unless of course you use a tripod.

3.ISO controls the sensors sensitivity to light,allowing you to shoot at higher shutter speed/apeture.The trade off is noise,the higher the iso the more the quality will degrade and noise will appear.1600 will not really produce useable images in most circumstances.The only time I ever use it is to shoot hs football where the field is usually very dark.

4.Low iso is not for night,just the opposite its for brightly lit situations.It will produce the best results with the least amount of noise but will require the most light.

5.As stated earlier 4000th of a sec shutter speed is waaay too fast for an interior shot.Without lights I would say more like 125th sec at F8 depending on the ambient light.Interiors are tricky to shoot and almost always require a tripod.

6.The faster the better to stop action.You must balance it out however with a combination of fstop and iso.You may need to shoot at iso400 and f4.0 to get a high enough shutter speed.Use you camera meter to determin the best combination.

7.Same thing here,the higher the shutter speed the better to freeze action.

8.Just the opposite,the bigger the file size the more information obtained.Raw is the absolute best because no processing is done to the information exposed, but it requires large amounts of storage space.You should be fine on large JPEG for mos instances.

9.Again the noise has nothing to do with the image size.It is a function of the iso (and other factors not listed here to keep thealready high confusion factor down).When you enlarge it you are just amplifing the noise and making it more apparent.

10.Finally the settings on your camera are to help you easily shoot in certain situations.

AP is apeture priority..it is for situations where you need a constant amount of depth of field.The camera will try to pick an apporopriate shutter speed to match the apeture you have set.

TV is shutter priority..it is for when you need a certain shutter speed to achieve the effect you are looking for i.e. to freeze action(high) or to blur something like running water(low)

I would suggest you read the manual and suggested books (as well as Photography 8th edition)to thouroughly understand all of these concepts.Once you start to learn them shoot with your camera on manual for a while to learn how these settings interact with each other.I still shoot mainly on manual i'm just so used to it.

Hope this helps I know its a little long winded but I was in your shoes a little over a year ago and I know it can be confusing.