-= T2i / 550D users UNITE! (2) =-

It's so nice that it's finally warm enough to play outside!

marubozo wrote in post #12189830
It's so nice that it's finally warm enough to play outside!

Very nice photos of your daughter!

It is 89 degrees in Mount Juliet Tennessee today, so will it cool down enough to play outside???

davidc502 wrote in post #12189851
Very nice photos of your daughter!

It is 89 degrees in Mount Juliet Tennessee today, so will it cool down enough to play outside???

Wow, that is a bit warm for this time of year. Looks like some nasty storms headed this way come tomorrow.

DS_Monsoon wrote in post #12189607
...Secondly, I may be announcing myself as an idiot...

We have a policy here not to contradict members, so... under that premise... you are correct!

No, just kidding! I'm really glad you have discovered that whole universe. I clearly remember discussing the advantages of 'better viewfinders' when we talked about upgrading to 60Ds or 7Ds, but I have seen lots of people coming from P&Ss using the camera at arms length and in Live View.

The fact is, that, even if focus speed were the same (which you now know isn't) and if there were no other downsides... I find it that using the viewfinder takes you out of your environment and allows you to limit the world to the lenses range. In that way, you are much more 'in tune' with what your composition and shooting will be, because you cannot see any of the surroundings or be distracted by anything. You have a black periphery and your image... you are alone watching the world through this 'hole'. That's why I find bigger, brighter viewfinders much more interesting!

Of course, the focus issue is huge! Also the battery life expectancy, the camera quick access to buttons since the direction arrows transforms into the focus rectangle positioning tools. There is also another clear disadvantage, and it is you are holding the camera like a steering wheel and with the arms floating on thin air... when in the viewfinder, you have the arms compressed against the body and the camera firm against your head, so your steadiness increases ten-fold!

It really haven't occurred to me that anyone would have 'overlooked' the possibility, but now that you bring it up, there may be others, so its good that you have shared this experience so others can benefit from it!

Also, about the 'idiot' condition... no idiots here, we are all students! I remember calling my dad and telling him: "I'm thinking about buying 17-40L prime" "The 17-40 is zoom!" "Yes, but its a Prime lens!" "No, its a zoom!" "Of course its a zoom! its a 17mm to 40mm, but its an L lens of the highest grade of optics and build quality, its a PRIME lens!!" "No son, a prime lens is a lens with fixed focal length" "Oh, common! What are you talking about!!! A prime lens is a lens that is better in quality than the overall lenses!" ... well, this went on for a while and almost turned into a fight. So, no idiots here, only people learning their way into photography, the tools at our hands, and the terminology for them.

Best regards,
Rafa.

Ok, before the posting gets out of hand and I miss on commenting on some great images ...

Mitch.A, fantastic set of images. Color, exposure, composition, all very well done! I'm not a fan of slanted compositions, but there are some that can pull them quite nice (not me, ever!). Yours is a fine example! But, my pick is also the palmtrees and water. The breathing space left for the relfection, which is all but invisible, makes the picture perfect! I love it.

Revmichael, I don't know if you have been properly welcomed, but, at any rate, Welcome to POTN and the T2i section! Great that you are sharing your images. I particularly like the second shot, the black and white cat. You chose a perfect DoF, image is sharp and the background all but invisible, the uniform hue to the image is nice as well. I also like the altar very much. Of your second group, the virgin and church really stand out. Is the stone really of those 3 different hues or did you do some post on the image? It has purplish stone on the top floor, brownish in the middle and gray at the bottom. Really nice for depth.

Marubozo, great outside images. The las of your kid pushing the mower is great!, but my favorite is the kid with the ball. That is magazine material!

Rafa.

REVMICHAEL - those are great shots of the church. I visited some church one of them is the 400 yrs old church in Bohol Philippines. And welcome to potn and to t2i company.

RafaPolit wrote in post #12189949
Marubozo, great outside images. The las of your kid pushing the mower is great!, but my favorite is the kid with the ball. That is magazine material!

Thanks. yeah, I love that ball shot. The expression and pose is priceless!

While not as dramatic of a pose, I was able to freeze time at an interesting moment here as well:

bobobird wrote in post #12189316
THAT is a lot of guitars........

Yeah....this town in Cebu south of Manila is famous of making guitars. Yes we saw a lot with different sizes too.

Peter2516 wrote in post #12189968
REVMICHAEL - those are great shots of the church. I visited some church one of them is the 400 yrs old church in Bohol Philippines. And welcome to potn and to t2i company.

thanks, man, those were my first batch of photos, ever. you fr the PI too?

revmichael wrote in post #12189750
cnc's anyone?

Beautiful photos Michael, but that rose just blew me away. Stunning.

RafaPolit wrote in post #12189801
Annie,

A Neutral Density filter's only purpose it to cut the amount of light coming into the camera. A PERFECT ND Filter would have no hue tint, no quality degradation, no chromatic aberration, no fringing, etc.. So, two pictures of static objects (without any motion like wind, or water, or clouds), one with and one without an ND filter, would look EXACTLY THE SAME. NDs are not perfect, but the quality degradation on the good ones is almost non-existent.

What are they used for? They have several key uses.

The first is to allow much slower shutter speeds for subjects where you want to emphasize motion, like a Waterfall. Lets say you aim at a waterfall during the afternoon and you get a 1/250th f8 ISO100 reading. You know that at 1/250th, water instead of looking smooth will look edgy and you don't want that. What are your choices to get slower shutter speeds? Closing the aperture is one way to go, but if you go further than f8, you risk degrading the IQ due to diffraction. You can lower the ISO, but you cannot use anything lower than ISO100. At this point, you have no option but to cut the light coming into THE LENS. An ND 8x (3 fstop) filter would allow you to shoot at 1/30th, allowing a much nicer silky look. An ND 64x (6 stop) would require a 0.4" of exposure giving you the perfect silky look.

There are other interesting uses. Lets say you are taking a nice portrait of a bride outside. Its bright daylight! Of course, you want shallow DoF so you go for your 50mm f1.8 and set it at f1.8 (this is just a 'for example' case, I wouldn't suggest f1.8 for that ). You set it to highlight tone priority, so you don't blow the highlights so you have ISO200 available. Now, you take a light reading and your camera tells you 1/4000th is still not fast enough and you are still a couple of fstops overexposed (assume you are shooting in the surface of Mercury or on the Sun's own surface here ). You could, of course, close the aperture, but then you lose the DoF advantage! Once again, the only choice is to use an ND filter to allow for a 1/3200th and a correct exposure.

So, we usually have 3 ways of reaching an exposure. With Aperture, with Shutter Speed or with ISO. If one of them reaches its limit or your target mark (a specific f aperture or shutter speed) you still have the other two to play with. If the a second one reaches its limit, you are left to play with the third one. If that one reaches its limit, you need to resort to other means. When there is too much light, ND filters are one of the solutions, just like a Flash is the solution when there is not enough light.

So, you cannot compare images side by side, cause it will do no good. You need to compare them with the settings used. So, your first image probably uses a 1/60th or more, your second image probably got a 1/15th or less... I don't know.

To top all this, you have a GRADUATED ND filter... this follow the same idea but they have a different graduation on one side of the filter and, usually, no graduation on the other end. This allows you to filter light differently in one part of the frame than in the other. Their use is mostly for landscapes where you want the sky properly exposed AND the ground properly exposed as well.

So, I agree with Marubozo as to the fact that you cannot compare a CPL filter with an ND filter, they are not meant for similar results, and if you are not on those 'extreme' examples I pointed out earlier, the images between NDd image and noNDd image are going to be identical.

Hope this is more or less helpful? Also, nice to hear you are feeling better.

Rafa.

Thanks Rafa. I think I'm getting what you're saying, but I'm going to print it out so I can really understand it. I'm sure the filter I got is a piece of junk, but the entire setup (Cokin TYPE filter, adapter ring, and the filter cost me a big $8 and change, including shipping (free), so I figured I couldn't go too wrong.

marubozo wrote in post #12189830
It's so nice that it's finally warm enough to play outside!

Maru, it's about time you got some decent weather. And there's nothing like the joy on kids faces when they can finally get outside to play after a long, long winter. That shot of your little girl tossing that ball up in the air just made me smile.

DS_Monsoon wrote in post #12189607
First off, great pictures everyone! I'm out of town for two days and there must have been 20 pages...nice activity! Seriously, we seem to have the most active thread on the forum.

Secondly, I may be announcing myself as an idiot but I just discovered something that most of you probably already knew. Taking pictures by using the viewfinder results in better pictures than using the live view. The T2i was my first DSLR so I came from point and shoot cameras. As such I really only had experience taking photos that way. I decided to try out the viewfinder today and WOW! was I surprised about the difference. The auto-focus is much, much faster. I did a little testing and it would take 1 to 1.5 seconds with live view where it would take maybe a quarter of a second with the viewfinder. I had posted an problem of burst shooting with manual focus (where it reduced the fps rate)...well this only occurs in live view and isn't a problem when using the viewfinder.

My message is this: if you are taking pictures like I was and have been using the live view instead of the viewfinder I urge you to try and switch. This has made my T2i seem like a whole new camera! I'm excited to get out and try it! Why didn't someone tell me this sooner!

I'm so used to using the viewfinder, that I almost never even think about using live view. For many years, DSLRs didn't have live view (at least, my Minoltas didn't), that I'm now not comfortable using anything but the viewfinder. I can see where live view might come in handy for some types of shots, but so far, I've been very happy peering through the viewfinder. The only downside is all the crap that seems to stick to my screen from my cheek being pressed up against it. LOL

hello everyone ... we had a wonderful spring day today. the evening sun was great ...

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/gepixelt/560395​1320/

gepixelt wrote in post #12190015
hello everyone ... we had a wonderful spring day today. the evening sun was great ...

Dirk, those flowers are just lovely. Beautiful DOF too.

gepixelt wrote in post #12190015
hello everyone ... we had a wonderful spring day today. the evening sun was great ...

Awesome. Magnolias are my favorite trees in the entire world!

Looks like you have some dust on your sensor though

Can someone explain to me what Viewfinder is? and or why it is called viewfinder?

VFVhho wrote in post #12190022
Can someone explain to me what Viewfinder is? and or why it is called viewfinder?

It's that thing you put your eyeball up to on the back of the camera and look through to see what you are going to photograph. I think the name is pretty literal. It lets you find the exact view that you want to photograph.

Dirk, +1 on the flowers above. Really nice colors, etc.