Help getting started, results puzzle me

Hi,

Today is the first day I tried my 10D, I only have the 70-300 lens at the moment, I hope to receive my 35-85 tomorrow, they are both Canon lensen.

My questions.

When I take a picture they appear to be rather soft, a bit unsharpen mask 160, 1.3 and 0 do wonders but than sometimes when zooming you can see some colorartifacts like red spots.

Is there a way arround this.

Second question.
The 10D seems to love ISO400 at this time, is that the lens I choose (70-300) or is that the most used ISO timing for the Canon, because I see some noise in the picture (VERY minor).

I used to have the HP850 and although that camera is WAY WAY inferieur to the 10D, the results straight out the camera APPEARED to need less work.

Greetings,
Frank

This seems to be a common refrain, especially from 10D users who come from digicams that are more consumer oriented. The Canon 10D is really targeted for people who will want to manipulate their images, and thus they are designed to leave much of the optimization to the photographer using Photoshop. Cameras like your HP are designed to produce satisfactory prints directly.

For example, most people will want to sharpen the images produced by the 10D. But they will differ on how much sharpening is needed. Canon could set the camera to sharpen in an amount that would fall in the middle of this range, but then half the photographers will think their images over-sharpened. Thus, Canon has been coonservative with the sharpening within the camera. Also, sharpening is easy to add after the fact, but it's very difficult to remove if it is overdone.

Exposure is similar. Images that appear slightly dark and slightly flat can be expanded and have all the tonal information needed to satisfy most photographers. But images that are set to be contrasty and push more of the histogram into the highlights will reduce the ability of the photographer to adjust the contrast and tonality after the fact.

But if you like you can turn up sharpness and contrast in the menus, and you can compensate for the exposure. But then you have to take what you get.

Rick "who comes from film scanning and prefers a reasonable image for proofs but who will always adjust images in Photoshop before displaying them" Denney

I totally agree with you, I calibrate display's professionaly (ISF-tech) and I know what sharpening can do namely ruing your picture.

That's what I have difficulty with, when I have to add sharpness to my pictures, something tells me DON'T !!! know what I mean.

The HP had very harsh pictures often with to much contrast and to much sharpness added.

I have fiddled arround with some 10D shots and they are so amazing looking, I always use the terms analog looking or digitally looking and the 10D shots look very analog to me (in video terms CRT vs Digital displays).

The only thing that bugs me is the 400ISO settings, I will try to overrule that with my other lens if it arrives, again I have taken arround 50 shots with it, mostly just point and shoot (not caring about the subject I mean). Soon I will be taking it to the zoo and then I will really see what it can do .

Thanks for the comments, I'm a bit more secure now for the sharpnening, and indeed the picture seems to just jump into focus.

Greetings,
Frank

ISO400 is not the default setting on the 10D, you can set what ISO you want.
Unless you are using one of the preset shooting modes that are on the mode selection dial.
With the lens you have, handheld, I would be happier using Tv (shutter priority), setting at least a 1/500th./second and then manually adjusting the ISO to give f8 (try ISO200 in decent light) or whatever in the light you have.
This is where a limited maximum aperture does restrict your choice of lower ISO - just as it does with film of course.

I will try that in the weekend.
I got my 35-105 lens by the way so I will shoot some with that also.

Greetings,
Frank

Ok, I'm confinced .

Just shot some pictures in the garden and NOT used the standard USM but the other ways talked about in this forum and now I'm COMPLETLY satisfied with the results.

I'm still dubbing between the extra layer option to add sharpness or the Luma only method, so any input on that is welcome.

Greetings,
Frank

Hey up JAF, In a few days/ week I'll be selling my 70-200mm 2.8 sigma lens if your interested!

J.A.f. Doorhof wrote:
Ok, I'm confinced .

snipped.....


I'm still dubbing between the extra layer option to add sharpness or the Luma only method, so any input on that is welcome.

In all the classes and seminars I have taken the suggestion is use USM in LAB mode in the luminence channel only. Some dust/scratches can be added to the other channels also, to help reduce noise and smooth the image.

lara

Welcome to the world of serious digital photography!

If you don't mind, here are my experience, some part of it is shared by many others around.

First, Canon DSLR is like many 135 SLR out there which provides a lot of controls for the photogapher. That means leaning how to operate your camera fully is one of the very basic skills you need. That does not mean that one should not use those automatic modes provided, but personally, leaning how to use Av, Tv, and M modes helps you to create better pictures later on (the latter is something I am still trying to achieve).

Second, 10D is much heavier than many consumer/prosumer grade digital camera out there, even without the battery grip. Handling the camera is quite different. If not, softness could be induced by handshake blur.

Third, images (JPEG) come directly from Canon DSLR is inherently not-that-sharp -- even if you are using some great lenses like EF70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM, EF300mm f/2.8 L IS USM or EF300mm f/4 L IS USM -- to name a few. It is just darkroom developments of film camera (which I have absolutely no experience whatsoever). Now you need a photo-editing tool to "develope" your photograph, and Canon expect you to do this from Day One! The development process, often referred as "workflow", is yet another technique you have to acquire. Dr. Don Cohen MD, Mr. Pekka Saarinen, Mr. Fred Miranda, all have some workflows for you to reference (well, paying for tools is another question).

Last but not least, shooting in RAW would give you more control over what you have taken but they are larger and take more time to "develope". For over 23,000 crappy photographs with my EOS D30, I would say RAW worths it all.

Sorry for being long-winded. Here is my two cents.


Griffin.

Hi,

Thanks for all the comments.

@Cardigna,
I allready have the lenses I want for the moment, in the future I will look for used L lenses or Tokina (for which we are dealer now).

@the rest
The workflow is indeed very important, I was just puzzled by the fact that adding anything to my pictures is seen as degrading the picture. But I have to learn (and am allready) that this is not video but photography.

I purchased the HP850 to get myself known with shuttersspeeds (well speed ?) and Aperture sizes, it serves me well now.

I will be experimenting alot the comming days/weeks/years and let's see what it brings .

Greetings,
Frank