STICKY:  Canon DSLRs and Lenses 101

Great write up!

wow. thorough.

Good info. Its not "perfect" as others pointed out but for someone that knows absolutely nothing or very little this is a great wealth of knowledge.[IMG]

Delightful to read

Good Read.

Thanks

Thanks.

Nice info. Thanks.

Thank you for taking the time to write this, as someone who is starting out, who really enjoys taking shots, for pleasure not gain, finding this gem of an article explaining things in a way I can understand and refer back to has given me a big smile.
Hope I can put all of this into practise and see a Real improvement in my shots.
Thanks Drew.

Awesome write up! I need to send this site URL to a few friends!

I am finally learning my canon dslr and I use this thread as my reference. I generally use my T1i in portrait, but got to learn coz of my daughter marching band. Completely lost but this is very helpful. Time to use those lenses.

Very nice writeup! At times I still find too many variables at play when I need to take shots in a hurry and I go to 'Auto' (it's a bad thing)

As a self taught snapper, I was glad to read this and confirm what I had learned. thanks for posting it,

DoctorLove wrote in post #15291344
Very nice writeup! At times I still find too many variables at play when I need to take shots in a hurry and I go to 'Auto' (it's a bad thing)

Simplify it down for yourself.

Stick your camera in Aperture priority mode ("Av" on Canon, "A" on Nikon). This gives you dial-control of the aperture and will lock that value in for you until you want to change it. This also prevents the camera from setting the ISO automatically and/or popping up the flash.

Now set your ISO to something reasonable for the lighting conditions you are in, do this ahead of time. Outdoors and plenty of light? ISO 200 give or take. Indoors with poor light? Use anything from 400 to 1600 depending on how much light you have and how tolerant your camera body is of high ISO values (grain/noise). You do this BEFORE you start taking photos and you just took 2 of 3 main variables out of the equation.

Now shoot. The depth of field is now set by you, the ISO is set by you, all the camera has to do is try to find the correct shutter speed to match the ISO and Aperture values that you've provided. If the shutter speeds its setting are too slow and your pictures are coming out motion-blurred - then you'll need to use a larger aperture (lower number) or increase the ISO.

This is the simplest way to get yourself familiar with relationship of the 3 mechanisms that affect exposure. A few weeks of shooting in Aperture priority mode will get you more practical experience than 5 years of shooting in green-box mode.

PM me if you have any questions.

Thanks Bill!

That tip is really helping me by just sticking to those settings until I start to feel comfortable. I went outside today to take some pics (see PM link) and noticed each time I wanted less light in the camera by increasing the Av, pics were becoming blurry (couldn't really play with ISO, since even at ISO100, it was quite bright), therefore I went to the manual mode to keep Av constant & then changing the shutter speed.

I've sent you a PM for link to the recent pics. Please let me know how I could have improsed those shots.

I had used 50mm f1.4 lens.

Here's a sample pic.

Great write up! Happy New Year:p

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