60D users, friends and their random OT B.S.

Late to the party but I'm in!

Just noticed the new thread. Vinz, in my limited experience you need to use a longer lens to get the background blurred or zoom in as far as possible. This will only work if you have enough room to stand back of course. I know you said never mind the pose, but uggg that guy in the bottom left has to go!

Jay-Bird wrote in post #14603501
Heres a cat:

Straight onto the camera, put it in Av and set ISO to Auto to get a baseline.

Pretty good for ISO 3200

where did you get it? It was not to be available until end of June?

lol ! "The Stand-Off"

R2 does have a nasty little laser-torch... and he 'will' use it with little provocation

I don't have a 60D but most of my photos were taken along side of the 60D belonging to the one and only Dr.D and he said the peeps on here were the coolest in the forum. Any tips or suggestions welcome.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/bigbee79/738196​7346/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/bigbee79/738198​0596/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/bigbee79/738196​4214/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/bigbee79/738195​5934/

MakisM1 wrote in post #14603486
@ Vinz: Nope! Look at the DOF for a crop (7D) vs FF (5) in the DOF Calculator

http://www.dofmaster.c​om/dofjs.html

thanks for the link, it's cool. i tried to calculate though with the following input. 21mm at f2.8 at 5ft distance, i got 1.9ft. in the example above, i think it's way more than 1.9ft.

is there any other factor?

Welcome bigbee, you find a better group of people all in one place outside of this thread! I don't shot with a 60d either but owwned one briefly last year and that's when I found these are the most helpful & interactive group on the whole of POTN (not to say there aren't helpful people elsewhere on the forum).

The cars on fire!!

BigBee Dr. D is right. Stay here and ask anything. Welcome to the club.

yup welcome to our dysfunctional family..I mostly fiddle with my 5D2 but when I gotta do my car photography I have to have my 60D cause it just gives me that nice reach along with my 70-200. >

..

and girls. LOL

todmac wrote in post #14600349
Well the one from Amazon is $38...don't get me wrong it's a very nice tripod for the money and will do a great job. Figuring that most of us here have some level of gear envy and always want better stuff...you have to decide what's best for you. If your use of a tripod is limited then you may not want to drop a lot of money on a tripod right now and you should have no worries about spending $38 dollars on one. That wont set you back to the point where you will not be able to buy something nicer in the future.
I started with $38 model and found that I wanted something nicer and decided to go with this combo: Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 (carbon fiber) $375 and the Really Right Stuff BH-40 LR (ballhead) $430 both pictured below and both are very sexy

That's a nasty looking tripod! Haha! Anyways, pulled the trigger on the amazon $38 tripod and i guess i'll see how i go from there!

Will it be able to carry a gripped 60D + 18-200 + 430ex ii? Hehe!

todmac wrote in post #14600349
Well the one from Amazon is $38...don't get me wrong it's a very nice tripod for the money and will do a great job. Figuring that most of us here have some level of gear envy and always want better stuff...you have to decide what's best for you. If your use of a tripod is limited then you may not want to drop a lot of money on a tripod right now and you should have no worries about spending $38 dollars on one. That wont set you back to the point where you will not be able to buy something nicer in the future.
I started with $38 model and found that I wanted something nicer and decided to go with this combo: Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 (carbon fiber) $375 and the Really Right Stuff BH-40 LR (ballhead) $430 both pictured below and both are very sexy

that's porn. sexy....

Thanks everyone for all the support. It will be great to be among the working again, and it will be even better to get a car again when I can. Finally get my life back on track. Should find out tomorrow or the next day when I start. Did the drug test today and its guaranteed to pass since they don't test for alcohol LOL

BurnUnit wrote in post #14603376
Well here goes nuthin'.

I think the first shot is just too cluttered. Blurry heads in the foreground and a big sign and large areas of dark and light in the background all fighting for your attention. And all the kids have dark hair which mostly blends into that dark curtain.

I like the second shot for kind of the same reasons that the first shot is lacking. Less distractions, you got in close to your subject and threw the background into a blur. It's maybe a bit underexposed but has a nice warm look to it.

The third shot's not bad either except for having to look over someone's shoulder. I still have trouble with this myself but you have to keep an eye on everything in the frame and not just your subject.

It would help if we could see your EXIF data but flickr seems to strip it from all pics. Maybe try posting some shots from Photobucket or some place that leaves the EXIF intact.

MakisM1 wrote in post #14603510
You shot the first one at 1/80 ISO 640 wide open f1.8

You can shoot at ISO 3200 with ETTR (Exposure to the right) which means probably 1/2 f-stop more than what you 've got. Use 1 stop for the speed (shoot 1/160) to eliminate motion blur/camera motion (don't forget the effect of the crop factor) and f2.2 as the aperture.

If you shoot RAW you will compensate the overexposure reducing the noise, and some NR will take care of the rest.

If you shoot JPEGs, they will come fine straight out of the camera.

I don't even think about using ISO 3200 1 stop overexposed on evaluative. Often I'll go ISO6400, and with some NR ISO 12800 is usable.

Edit: In the second photo you realize that you focused on the ticket... Shooting wide open at f1.4 the rest of the girl is outside the depth of field. You could use ISO 3200 and shoot at f2.8

Clay and Gerry thanks for the replies. I will work on these tips. I guess I was always afraid that raising the iso would introduce too much noise. I thought about getting a tripod but figured that it would become a crutch for my lack of ability. When I first joined the forum I Pm'd David (Rivest) with some questions and he told me to get out and shoot more. I guess I should've listened to him back then. Oh well, better late than never I guess.