My first shots with 400D and 17-40.

Hi all. Well, finally have my kit together so it was time to go out and start to figure out how to use it. We went to the city (Adelaide) today and wandered around taking some photo's. I had a little chuckle to myself because I've only just read half of the "Whats the strangest comment you've had" thread and while we didnt get any "lens size" comments, we did get quite a few looks, one "oh wait, dont walk in front of the photographer" comment and one "hey dude, take my photo" (drunk guy) comment. Had a near disaster because we took the dog with us and I ended up tripping over her with camera in hand, falling hard onto my knee then managed to roll onto my shoulder as I fell, keeping the camera off the ground the whole time.

Anyway, I digress. Here are some of the shots. CC very welcome.

Too bad the first one has the spots on it from lens glare.

Wow, somewhere I recognise.

They all look a tad soft: maybe a side-effect of your JPEG compression, or possibly you need to apply a touch of sharpening.

The 2nd and 4th are neatly composed though.

You've got the hood for that lens, right?

Maybe my eyes are just tired, but none of them really pop... all rather soft as well. nothing some good curves adjustments in RAW wouldn't sort out

Thanks for the advise folks. I'll have a go at sharpening them. And yes, I do have the hood but with it being my first trip out with the camera I was feeling a tad shy and the hood made the camera look even bigger so I left it home. I'll take it with next time.

Cheers.........HB.

Well done in taking out the camera and 17-40 and "getting your feet" wet. Don't be shy about the lens or taking out the lens hood. You'll get used to the stares and comments

Shooting at around 3pm in the afternoon, you've got some good sunlight from the shots. But why shoot at around F20 - F22 at speeds of between 1/15 and 1/25? Yeah, one should shoot speed of 1/focal length but I personally would have made sure that my shutter speed was over 1/100 and kept my F-stop at F11-F16. Exif said you where in shutter priority, just wondering what your thoughts where when operating the camera?

The slow shutter speed is probably why they are kind of soft.

Try aperture priority and set it to F11. If you don't get a speed of 1/100 to 1/125 then increase the aperture, lower the F-stop to F-8 or less if you need to. Better still, stay in shutter priority and let the camera decide the F-stop.

using a lens hood or taking off any UV filter you might have on the lens will help reduce if not eliminate the lens flare youre getting in 2 of those images

rammy wrote in post #2689660
Well done in taking out the camera and 17-40 and "getting your feet" wet. Don't be shy about the lens or taking out the lens hood. You'll get used to the stares and comments

Shooting at around 3pm in the afternoon, you've got some good sunlight from the shots. But why shoot at around F20 - F22 at speeds of between 1/15 and 1/25? Yeah, one should shoot speed of 1/focal length but I personally would have made sure that my shutter speed was over 1/100 and kept my F-stop at F11-F16. Exif said you where in shutter priority, just wondering what your thoughts where when operating the camera?

The slow shutter speed is probably why they are kind of soft.

Try aperture priority and set it to F11. If you don't get a speed of 1/100 to 1/125 then increase the aperture, lower the F-stop to F-8 or less if you need to. Better still, stay in shutter priority and let the camera decide the F-stop.

Cheers Rammy, what you say is very helpful. I'll definatley give it a go next time. You ask what I was thinking while operating. Well, I played around with different settings and seemed to be getting nice light with these settings AND I thought I needed the highest F number to get the best DOF, but, as you have said, I'll go with lower F numbers and faster speeds next time.

@Converge. OK, I'll go the hood too (or take off the UV)

Thanks very much for your help.

Cheers.......HB

H.B. wrote in post #2691270
Cheers Rammy, what you say is very helpful. I'll definatley give it a go next time. You ask what I was thinking while operating. Well, I played around with different settings and seemed to be getting nice light with these settings AND I thought I needed the highest F number to get the best DOF, but, as you have said, I'll go with lower F numbers and faster speeds next time.

Thanks for the info, that explains what you wanted to achieve. I have the 17-40 and it does very well around the middle apertures (F8-F16). You don't really need to go all the way to F22 unless you have some really big distances between the foreground and background elements, like 100's of feet. At those kinds of distances, you then need to start thinking about hyperfocal distances. Which you should have in the back of your mind for all your F-stops anyway

What might help you appreciate the DOF on your new fab lens, if you need it, is to review a DOF calculator. This one will help you trust your lens more on certain settings, it certainly helped me : http://www.dofmaster.c​om/dofjs.html

Best of luck and have fun with your lens.

Now you've gone and done it. I havent ventured along Nth Terrace with the camera but I will next time I have a weekend with blue sky.

Nice shots but as the first comment said watch them flares.

One other thing. Dont forget to add some contrast and look at saturation. The last image looks a little flat.

Thanks Pete, I've been using contrast and saturation a fair bit lately. You're right, the last is kinda flat.

HB.

I love it when people tell the stories about their shoot. Thanks for sharing the story and the beautiful photos that were the result.

Definitely take the hood out with you next time.

Don't be afraid to post-process. Images will come out of the camera a little flat, especially if you shoot RAW. A little post-processing and these would be very good. I like the third and fourth but I'm seeing some distortion. And on the last one I believe the horizon is slanted just a tad. All these things can be corrected in post-processing.

Thanks for the comments folks. I'll take it all on board for next time.

Cheers......HB