-= 40D Owners - Share Tips and Pics

I've had my 40d for a while now and considering upgrading. I'm not 'unhappy' as such with the camera It's just I've never had a new to me camera (both my 20d and 40d came from a friend)

I think my friend played around a lot with custom settings and stuff (without knowing what he was doing) - I'm never sure that whether I get a high proportion of 'bad' shots due to some weird setting on the camera or whether it's just me.

I get some ok shots but straight out of the camera I just feel they are pretty poor, they seem soft and quite dull.

Can anybody suggest some settings to look at? Or perhaps 'optimum settings'?

Thanks

Take this for example:

sancho1983 wrote in post #16251198
Take this for example:


Not an amazing shot with regard to composition etc. - I was just trying to get some shots of the kid hitting the thing.

But it just looks really bad.

I was using a 25-105l lens, which I think focuses pretty well
f/8, should be a sharp aperture right?
1/250, shouldn't be slow enough for my 'shakiness' to effect it?
I always use a single focus point (the centre one)
I think it's usually evaluative metering

Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Is this SOOC ?
What do you think is wrong with it? What don't you like about it?
Just read your above post, I dont think you'll find many images on theses forums which are SOOC. The majority of images are processed out of the camera. Images from a camera shot on auto are normally dull as hell. Most shots require processing of some kind. ( I would say all, but I cant be bothered with someone saying it is wrong :P)

Yes, straight out of camera, it just looks soft, overexposed in places and quite dull.

I always use aperture priority.

sancho1983 wrote in post #16251329
Yes, straight out of camera, it just looks soft, overexposed in places and quite dull.

I always use aperture priority.

The light looks too harsh on the face of the boy in the BG. I would suspect that the people are OOF with the exception of the centre point. Difficult to see on such a small image.
If it was shot raw you could easily tweak the exposure level and reduce the highlights.
Boost the green saturation , reduce the red ever so slightly.
Then apply an unsharp mask followed by a high pass layer to bring back some sharpness.
Scale the image to whatever size you want and then unsharp mask again.
That photo is pretty flat, looks like it was shot at a bad time of day in bright direct sunlight too, which will wash out colors and blow out your exposure.

Looked at your photo stream and you have captured some amazing pictures with this camera, this one doesnt have much potential, it wont ever be a breathtaking photo.

In my opinion.

Every so often the planets seem to align and I get a shot Ilike.

I think it's colour I struggle with. When I post process I tend to turn everything black and white as I can't make it look them look 'good' in colour.

Edit. On my phone on the moment but will add a picture I like tomorrow

sancho1983 wrote in post #16251353
Every so often the planets seem to align and I get a shot Ilike.

I think it's colour I struggle with. When I post process I tend to turn everything black and white as I can't make it look them look 'good' in colour.

Processing is the most difficult part, you are your own worst enemy during it, always arguing and tweaking to see what is best.
You took the image, you saw the scene and you will try as hard as you can to get it to match. Patience and practice.
Some of the people on this forum have such unbelievable skill when it comes to capturing the perfect shot and then processing it until it is perfect. But I dare say even the pros get frustrated at times when processing. It all takes time and practice.

Patrick, amazing crisp and clear action shots - as always! Always a pleasure to see your eye-candy. Thanks for the posts.

Norcal29 wrote in post #16251932
Patrick, amazing crisp and clear action shots - as always! Always a pleasure to see your eye-candy. Thanks for the posts.

^^ Thank you, Sir... Glad you like 'em ^^

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …s/patrickf117/9​620568591/

WhenIWake wrote in post #16251351
The light looks too harsh on the face of the boy in the BG. I would suspect that the people are OOF with the exception of the centre point. Difficult to see on such a small image.
If it was shot raw you could easily tweak the exposure level and reduce the highlights.
Boost the green saturation , reduce the red ever so slightly.
Then apply an unsharp mask followed by a high pass layer to bring back some sharpness.
Scale the image to whatever size you want and then unsharp mask again.
That photo is pretty flat, looks like it was shot at a bad time of day in bright direct sunlight too, which will wash out colors and blow out your exposure.

Looked at your photo stream and you have captured some amazing pictures with this camera, this one doesnt have much potential, it wont ever be a breathtaking photo.

In my opinion.

As in my Flickr? How did you find that?

I use Lightroom for processing and to be honest I fiddle about with it until I get something I think looks ok, 99% of the time that appears to be black and white.

I bought a book a few months ago, hopefully soon I will get round to reading it!

Patrick,
Even though I haven't owned a 40D for awhile now, I keep coming back to this thread to see your surfing pictures. They are just awesome...