*Top tips thread*

A growing list of vendors we do not reccommend based on experiences:
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=26567

Likewise, a list of vendors we can reccommend based on experiences:
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=26568

Please add your own experiences

Gaffers Tape - 101 uses and counting.....

I personally can't imagine not having some handy. I do a few wraps around each leg of my tripods and monopod. Makes for a better hand hold and doesn't feel cold like bare aluminum does in cool climates. And to make those really slippery/smooth lens hoods easier to deal with a run a ban adound the mount end to get a better grip. Best thing about this, no residue when you go to take it off should you ever want to sell or trade your gear in.

Scott

Canon EOS 300D Tips and Tricks link

(While mostly 300D-related, there are a lot that apply to EOS cameras
in general)

I've been trying to glean as many tips and tricks from this and other forums and the web and compile them into one place. Its easier than searching to endless threads here, I hope someone finds it useful.

http://www.bahneman.co​m …digital-rebel-tricks.html

I'll update it as often as I can for new tips and accuracy. Your Mileage May Vary.

Link to a thread on using AI Servo mode with custom function 04. References photographer Arthur Morris and his use of C.Fn-04 for birding.

http://www.photography​-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=28314

How AI Servo thinks in EOS 1 series cameras: http://photonotes.org/​other/ai-servo.html

Three more threads here;

So, you got a new EOS and wanna shoot weddings

And...

Just got a new DSLR camera?

All with more great tips.


-=How to test your 10D for backfocusing=-

www.leebase.com

For Rebel users.

Also included is the free "Velvia" action for PS elements and 7.

Ro1

Excellent article on Teleconverters with examples

From Bob Atkins over on photo.net
http://www.photo.net/l​earn/optics/tc2/index.​html

Also has a link to a Tamron 1.4 vs Canon 1.4 article:
http://www.photo.net/l​earn/optics/2tcs/index​.html

[QUOTE="DaveG"]

I love this tip. I already have velcro on one of my flashes-so will try this. Great tip.

Diane

1. A few photography books checked out from your local public library, assuming you choose books appropriate to your needs and truly study them, will cost nothing and should improve your images more than yet another accessory.

2. Visiting the art museum will likely cost little or nothing, and again - it'll improve your work more than would another accessory.

3. Feedback matters. We improve through feedback. Join a local camera club, and let your work be ruthlessly critiqued. Enter your club's competitions. Learn how to politely and constructively critique other members' work.

4. Most community colleges offer inexpensive classes on various aspects of photography. I'm taking a Photoshop course at the local college, this fall. (For some reason, no "Photoshop CS for Digital Photographers" courses were offered at my high school in 1979. So I took Advanced B&W Darkroom, instead.)

5. Don't be too much of an equipment snob. There's a saying sometimes heard in firearms conversations, "Beware the man who owns just one gun; he probably knows how to use it." Similarly, that guy standing next to you, taking pictures with the 30 year old 35mm SLR w/50mm f/2 lens, may just know how to use his equipment to its best advantage. And, consequently, shoot rings around 98% of us.

6. Place little faith in most magazines' published equipment reviews. Our sun will go nova before Pop Photo prints a negative review of a piece of Nikon, Canon, etc., equipment.

7. Unless you've a good and compelling reason to do otherwise, always shoot in highest quality mode. It takes no more than a few seconds to resize a high resolution original, should you need to shrink it down for email or a website. But nothing can add information to a low resolution original.

8. Fine-tuning an image in Photoshop (or Paintshop Pro, or something similar) is not cheating. Sure, it can be overdone, but there's nothing inherently wrong with adjusting contrast, using unsharp mask, or the like. The saying used to be that great photos are made or lost in the darkroom. Well, the computer is the digital photographer's darkroom.

9. If you delay buying until the new and improved model is introduced, you'll wind up never buying. Because there's always a newer and more improved model rumored to be introduced at the next big trade show.

10. If friends ask you to shoot their wedding, because they know you're not a professional or anything but they're on a really tight budget... run away. Okay, if that's not practical, consider hiring an inexpensive professional photographer as your wedding gift to the couple. If that's not practical, consider buying a bunch of disposable cameras, putting a few at eah table, and inviting guests to snap pictures, then deposit the cameras in a big "Wedding Pictures" bag on the way out. If that's not practical, run away. (Amateurs should be extremely reluctant to photograph weddings, in much the same way that 1st year medical students should be extremely reluctant to perform heart transplants.)

11. If you don't derive a significant percentage of your income from photography, you are an amateur photographer. Having once sold a picture to your hometown newspaper doesn't make you a professional. It doesn't make you a semi-pro or a prosumer (avoid both of these terms). What it makes you is an amateur photographer who once sold a picture to your hometown newspaper. And there's nothing wrong with admitting that you're an amateur.

12. You're probably less of an expert than you think you are.

13. Try to spend more time taking pictures, than you spend on the Internet writing about taking pictures.

14. If you just feel burned out, and don't want to pick up a camera again, take some time off. Put the camera in the closet, and forget about it for a while. Days, weeks, maybe months. Eventually, you'll probably start feeling motivated to take up the camera again. And when you do, you may find your work has improved over what you were turning out before your break.

15. It's a tool. Treat it with the respect and care a precision tool deserves. It's not a fragile relic, too delicate to be used. Yes, it's sort of expensive. Well, so is a car, but if I told you I don't take my car out in the rain, or drive near sand, for fear that it might result in my car no longer remaining in pristine, mint new condition, you'd be right to think I was crazy. Camera equipment is only worth having if you make use of it! (No nitpickers bring up the possibility that it's a $1.2 million classic, one-of-a-kind car, or a digital camera handmade out of the finest, most delicate porcelain.)

16. Always stop at #15.

ONLY use the camera to format the memory cards.

Reformat them on a regular basis to prevent image loss.

Well It looks like someone found a good tip, read the posts. But DO NOT bump 3yr old posts

Here's my two cents:

Learn how ETTL flashes work on canon digital SLRs. It isn't obvious. Read this:

http://photonotes.org/​articles/eos-flash/

A couple of over simplified examples: I shoot with my EX flash usually three ways:

1) with the camera on "M" which really isn't "manual" with an EX flash it is
more like "auto-flash", i.e. you set the aperture and shutter speed to what you want and the flash provides the light to get you to a "correct" exposure.

2) On "P". It is really the only time I ever use "P". The default for EX flashes on a 20D is as a fill flash, i.e. the camera will try to set the shutter speed/aperture for correct exposure without the flash and just uses the flash to illuminate shadows.

3) on aperture-priority with the flash sync fixed at 1/250 (custom function on a 20D). This is when I want the flash on maximum sync speed, damn it.

-- Scott.

Longwatch,I have just read how you leave your 10D set to P. F8. 1/125 etc. Please, how do you do this when P allows you to set either shutter or AV, on my 30D anyway?

Resurrection!

What he is saying is this

He switches from one mode to another regularly, (or he did back in 2003 when he posts that) and when he does, he wants to have these AI settings preset to the above list.

So, first set camera to AV, and set f/8
then set camera to TV @ 125.. etc..

Then if he starts out in P, and switches to "AV" he knows he's allready be set to f/8 in AV.. he won't also have to dial in AV.. the camera remembers this setting. .. and so on.

For those of us that never shoot in "P" anymore, the practice of leaving your camera set to "p" when not in use is still not a bad idea at all. It means if you ever have to grab for your camera and shoot instantly, this takes as much pressure and time off the shooter to do so. If you do have time to twiddle first, you can always twiddle out of "P" and into AV or Manual or what have you.