Emailing with the 50D?

[tanbark]

But first, EG, thanks for the handhold.


I have a new 50D. Took some soccer shots, and I'm trying to email them to my friend, the coach. I have yet to see anything in the Canon software with the thumbnails, or the enlarged-view photos, that says: "Email images" or "Share", or "Optimized images for email"...all of which things are in the software with the Sony DSC 505 that I've been using for 8 years now. It's very easy to email photos with that software.

Am I missing something, or with the Canon, do I have to download the shots into a file in the computer, create an email, and then click on "attach" and go and get them?

Also, I was told that it MIGHT be possible that the Jasco (I think it is) software could recognize the Canon camera. Anything to that that anyone knows of?

I understand that the higher pixels I'll be shooting at, will make for a slower upload and download (Much slower, apparently) but it would be nice to have the simplicity of emailing photos.

Thanks, tb.

[sapearl]

Hi Tanbark and welcome to POTN.

You will need some sort of image editing S/W to process and send your files, in the desired resolution and file size. This could be Gimp, Photoshop, Elements, etc. If you are sending files purely for viewing purposes, then they need only be formatted for screen resolution and sized small.

This would be like 72 dpi, 800x600 pixels, medium image quality or thereabouts. In Photoshop there is a SAVE feature called SAVE FOR WEB DEVICE. This would give you those results. You play with the controls for the desired result. File sizes would be in the range of 50-100K approximately. My proof web galleries are around this size. My fine art galleries are larger.

If you want to send images for printing, they will need to be much larger in order to result in fine print quality. The resultant JPG file size can be huge if you desire it, but that will make for slow emailing.

Generally, a 1MB file can render a very very nice 5x7 print and even a decent 8x10 print depending upon how good it was processed and captured. The files I send to my commercial lab for my wedding work are in the range of about 2 - 5 MB. Basically you would just save the file as a full resolution JPG (don't need to select 800x600 or any other dimension) and then indicate a quality level of either low, medium, high, very high or maximum, depending upon the s/w. It should display the file size at this point.

I would also recommend at this point that you read some books on editing your images. There is also a TON of phenomenal information on this forum. You just have to mine it with the search feature. All questions are answered here.... seriously; you just have to find them .

What will the coach be using the files for, printing or displaying in a web gallery? Hope this helps. Keep asking if you have more questions. Stu Pearl

[int2str]

Tanbark,

I would advice against emailing pictures. It's awfully slow on both your end and on the recipient side. Instead, use an image hosting service and send out a link. I shoot youth soccer pictures and regularly send the images out to the coaches and parents using Google's Picasa and the workflow is easy and convenient. Oh, and it's free...

Here's what I would suggest to you:
1) Sign up for a Google account if you don't have one yet
2) Download and install Picasa from here: http://picasa.google.com/

If you shoot JPEG, then here's the workflow:
1) Download images to PC (either using the EOS Utiliry or a card reader)
2) Fire up Picasa (it'll find and index the new images)
3) Hit "Upload to web album"
4) Email the resulting web link

Picasa will automatically resize the images to 1600x1200 and upload them. You also get to choose the access level. Album's can be completely public, or they can be "unlisted". If you set them to unlisted, only the people who get the direct link can see the album. That is perfect for soccer pictures since you may not want to make images of all the other kids publicly viewable.

You can also easily straighten pictures, crop them and fix basic issues without any advanced knowledge.

Give it a try. In my opinion it's the easiest workflow and you can have your pictures up literally minutes after a game. And the coaches/parents can view them online, download images from Picasa and view slideshows. All much quicker and more convenient than email.

These days I'm shooting RAW and my only intermediate step is to use DPP to do basic cropping & adjustments before I convert to JPEG and hand it over to Picasa.

[tanbark]

SA, thanks for the info. I surely bought more camera than I know how to use, but the quick autofocusing (much quicker than the D90, it seemed) and the 6 FPS, were attractive, for soccer, my main interest. My sends would be, at this point, only for viewing, or for making decent prints. As you note, the high MB's are for commercial-level stuff, and I have no need of them right now. And of course, they take forever to get up and down. I need to reduce the pixels I'm shooting at, for a first step.

I also think I'll uninstall the Canon software and just see if the old Sony software will recognize the new camera. The clerk at Best Buy insisted that there was a good chance of that. I was wondering if there's any way I can isolate or temporarily block the Canon software, so that it wouldn't pre-empt the Sony, which I believe is Jasco. Any thoughts on that? Thanks again, for taking the time. tb.

[tanbark]

Int: Thanks for your help. I'll save that, for future reference. But, with the Sony, eamailing shots that weren't of what you'd call commercial quality, was incredibly easy. It's hard to believe that 8 or 10 years after that software was available, that Canon has ingnored it. It's very user-friendly, and the Canon instruction booklet, and the functions, are generally that way too, but not seeing the word "email" in their book, or in their software, was a shock. )

[tanbark]

BTW, Int, what lens(es) do you use?

[sapearl]

In2str - thanks for that very nice write up. I'd heard about that service but never really explored the features since I upload to my PBase gallery. But that's good to know for some possible alternatives. - Stu

[tanbark]

EG, Stu, Int; You guys are GREAT! Thanks a ton for taking the time to help someone who's in over their head. I am so analog, you wouldn't believe it. )

At bluegrass and blackwater diving, I do fine. Digital photography?

Sometimes, it's downright embarassing.

Muchas grassyass, to you guys.

[int2str]

I use my 70-200mm for soccer along with the newly aquired 1.4x TC

Here's an example of an unlisted Picasa Album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/int2str/...aHxeHDl6ydmAE#

You can click "Slideshow" in the upper right corner once you're there and then even use your left/right keys on your keyboard to flip through the shots.

[tanbark]

Nice stuff! Your timing is excellent, and that's what it's all about, to me, for shooting soccer.

If I've got it right, your extender turns your 200 zoom into 280. Does it cost you a stop then, and is the autofocusing still quick? I plan on getting the 100-400, when I get the rubles, and I know the camera doesn't support the 2X extender, but it would be great to have that reach, and I don't mind manually zooming, and the push-pull mechanism with that lens is also not a downside, to me. (Most of the reviews for it are good, with a few, knocking it some.)

[tanbark]

I should have said, the camera won't support AUTOFOCUS with the 2X. Sorry.

[int2str]

Yes, the extender turns the 200mm into a 280mm. You do loose a stop. With the Canon extender I have (can't speak for others), the camera also notices this and shows f/4 in the displays.

I'd think that the reach of the 100-400mm would be plenty. If you really need it, I'd add the 1.4x TC at most. On the smaller youth fields, sometimes 280mm feels too long already at times and I have to quickly switch to portrait mode (turn the camera) to get the full frame.

As far as the AF speed, I honestly never really understood what people mean by that. The lens is a slight bit slower focusing from infinity down to the subject, but I just don't do that constantly - that's not how I shoot my pictures.

I shoot soccer in AF-Servo mode. When I'm ready to take a shot (or a burst of shots), I press the AF-ON button and start following my target/ball. Then when I catch the moment, I fire away. This means that the camera has to make a "large" focus adjustment only once while I start acquiring my subject. While I'm tracking it the lens doesn't have any issue at all keeping up.

What I'm trying to convey is that with my shooting style, raw AF speed just doesn't seem to matter much. I've just never worried about it. 1.4 TC or otherwise. The only time where it *might* be an issue if the camera is focused out to infinity (not sure why it would) and I yank it up for a quick candid shot or unexpected event. There the camera might take too long to acquire AF and I may miss the shot - but that's just not how I shoot and it's never happened to me yet.

[tanbark]

Int; thanks again. Those are good tips.

I favor high school level soccer. So much of the time, with the little kids, it's:

"Herd left; herd right; herd-up-the-middle." Although, when I was living in the Santa Cruz area, I spent a good deal of time in San Jose, reffing in the Peninsula league, and I'd occasionally stay and watch a kids game. Some of them were already getting a good spatial sense, by the time they were 9 or 10. That's one of the hotbeds for the game.

Dumb question; on my 50D, I'm still trying to find out how to reduce the fps from that max of 6, down to 3 or 4. I haven't found it in the book yet. Also, can you change the length of time the viewfinder info remains up? 4 seconds is too short for my cognitive skills. )

[int2str]

If you look at the top display when you switch to burst mode, the first burst mode icon has a small "H" at the bottom right. As you scroll through the modes, the next mode has the same icon (stack of images) with no "H". That's the 3 FPS mode.

Not sure about the viewfinder timeout. Just a tip: You can bring it back at any time by half-pressing your shutter.

[egordon99]

Originally Posted by tanbark

EG, Stu, Int; You guys are GREAT! Thanks a ton for taking the time to help someone who's in over their head. I am so analog, you wouldn't believe it. )

At bluegrass and blackwater diving, I do fine. Digital photography?

Sometimes, it's downright embarassing.

Muchas grassyass, to you guys.

Cool! I'm a big AKUS fan, along with Nickel Creek, Bela Fleck, and my Dad actually was friends with David Grisman growing up

I play a mean flat-top acoustic as well

Banjo, not so much

Glad we could get you sorted out with the photo stuff!