Is it better to zoom all the way in?

I've noticed it seems like I get my best/sharpest shots when I zoom ALL the way in on my target, and take the picture. For instance, I took a picture of my car today. Then I took another one, but this time I backed up the way, then zoomed in all the way with my 18-55mm lens and took the picture. To my surprise it seemed as though the one where I backed up all the way, then zoomed in 100% on my target and took the picture came out a lot better than maybe only zooming into my target halfway or a quarter of the way.

Probably because of the smaller aperture, which makes things sharper.

With that particular lens, I would attribute the increase in sharpness to a possible change in the F stop.
Some lenses are actually worse on their long end than through out the rest of the range.

ImRaptor wrote in post #6081335
With that particular lens, I would attribute the increase in sharpness to a possible change in the F stop.
Some lenses are actually worse on their long end than through out the rest of the range.

The OP didn't specify whether it was indoors or outdoors, but if it was outdoors, I'm pretty sure that it was already opened smaller than f/5.6.

ef2 wrote in post #6081329
Probably because of the smaller aperture, which makes things sharper.

Aperture has nothing do with zooming and in fact at the same aperture a longer focal length will have less depth of field than a shorter one.

Sorry I'm not a photography expert. What's your explanation?

I don't know here are the pics. I'm about to give up and sell my Rebel, I am really not good at taking pics. Might just sell this and buy a point and shoot. I can never get good color out of my photos, and it gets frustrating. I match up the f/stop and shutter speed on the camera dial and it still seems like I am getting crap.

The reason the 2nd picture is so dark is because of the white clouds fooling the camera meter into thinking there's too much light. The camera decreases the exposure and you end up with nicely exposed sky and clouds but the rest of the picture is underexposed.

The reason the first picture looks much better when you zoom in is because the cloud isn't in the picture to fool the meter. Take the 3rd picture and crop it so that what you see is what's in the 1st picture. Do they look almost the same exposure-wise?

doidinho wrote in post #6081425
Aperture has nothing do with zooming and in fact at the same aperture a longer focal length will have less depth of field than a shorter one.

The highlighted part isn't exactly true. Most of today's zoom lenses are not "constant aperture" lenses.

Take the Canon EF 28-300 f/3.5-5.6L IS, for example. If you had it set at 28mm, you could use f/3.5. However, if you had it set up that way and then zoomed out to 300mm, the maximum aperture (minimum f-stop) would be f/5.6.

I do believe this is what "ef2" was referring to, though I could be wrong.

#1 looks like it has good exposure. As you mentioned you have a good exposure for sky detail, but everything else is dark in #2. I think #3 is exposed well for the lighting situation you were dealing with.

Your camera does not have the ability to record the tonal range that our eyes see; therefore if you have a contrasty picture (cloudy sky and black car) you need to make compromise (either a very dark car or a very light sky).

I believe that there are a few ways you could have dealt with this situation.

The easiest way would have been to shoot the car from the other side so that the sky was reflecting off the car on the side you were shooting on; in your shot you have pavement and grass reflecting off the car on the side closest to you making that side relatively dark.

A graduated ND filter can be used to darken just the sky. Graduated ND's work best when the horizon is straight; the horizon is not straight in you shots; however, I think using one may have improved the photo.

Another option would be to take multiple exposures (one for the sky and one for the car) and then merge them in photoshop.

Lastly you could have exposed for the sky like you did in number two and then used a flash to light the car.

Keep messing around with things and you will get it, your camera appears to be working fine and you seem to be going having the same issues that many other people have when first starting out with an SLR. My advice is to leave the camera in M mode and then do a lot of experimentation. Take a shot, look at it, decide if you like the exposure, make adjustments as needed, and then re-shoot. If I get some time I will do some basic PP on one of your shots just to show you that everything is working fine.

evenflow wrote in post #6081671
I don't know here are the pics. I'm about to give up and sell my Rebel, I am really not good at taking pics. Might just sell this and buy a point and shoot. I can never get good color out of my photos, and it gets frustrating. I match up the f/stop and shutter speed on the camera dial and it still seems like I am getting crap.

I think I captured the sky/clouds good in this one, but EVERYTHING ELSE in the picture is very dark.

I assume everything else is dark because of the f/stop, but if I lower it everything gets overexposed and too bright, like the following photo.

A polarizing filter could help with the exposure of the car by controlling the radical reflections of the sky and other items on the ground.

Choosing a better position relative to the lighting source would, of course, be the best solution to improving this series of shots.

The lighting source is pretty much the whole overcast sky so I'm not sure how repositioning is going to help. Any surface on the car pointed upward is going have the sky reflecting off of it no matter where you stand around the car and any surface perpendicular to the sky, i.e. the sides of the car, is going to be dark no matter which side you shoot the car from.

Thanks guys. I appreciate all the info/feedback your leaving me. I am going to give it another go soon and try from different angles and what not.

PacAce wrote in post #6081827
The lighting source is pretty much the whole overcast sky so I'm not sure how repositioning is going to help. Any surface on the car pointed upward is going have the sky reflecting off of it no matter where you stand around the car and any surface perpendicular to the sky, i.e. the sides of the car, is going to be dark no matter which side you shoot the car from.

Ok, then perhaps he could try the shot from lower down in an effort the get the sky reflecting off the side of the car.

A lot of zooms are variable aperture so not true, - zooming does change the aperture on most regular consumer (kit lens)