-= T2i / 550D users UNITE! (1) =-

Itz, adding to what Rivest suggested, if you can easily get ahold of a Tzi/550D guide other than the manual, that would be a good thing! The actual manual is translated from Japanese, and although it has the information in it, often it is hidden or obscure. There are at least three books out on using the 550D for beginners. Your library might have one, or you can download them if you know how, or you could even buy one. They are about $20 from Amazon, but if you spent $800-1000 for your camera, I think it is worthwhile to spend a few extra dollars to get your money's worth out of it!

Itzmered,

Congrats again on the camera!!! Glad you like it, and glad that you have such 'willing' models to pose for you, you'll have the chance to get pictures in very many different situations. Congrats on the first set of images! They are very colorful.

I agree with Rivest about using P instead of Auto... until you figure most of the quirks and corners of the camera, setting the different focus points will prevent the camera from focusing the background with the lateral points... a center focus would be much better suited for your subjects. I'd try using the center focus, focus on their eyes, and then recompose the image so they are balanced within the frame.

Also, perhaps a vertical holding of the camera could reveal more of their bodies and even legs, which are always powerful and interesting subjects?

Good luck, and keep on sharing!!
Rafa.

I just looked and there are several books about the T2i available for Kindle. Any suggestions on what author is good?

I am reading David Busch's Canon EOS REbel T2i/550D Guide to Digital SLR and I believe its a really good book to start with... it gives several images as examples of what he is describing. It's not a cookbook, but its not as skinned down as the manual... it's the manual explained, if you will.

I read it in the Kindle, but I believe that a good print will help a lot with the examples he discusses in the book. That's the only one I can recommend, haven't read others.

Rafa.

I just sold my XSi on monday and turned around and used the money on a T2i.. Can't wait for it's arrival this friday. I will post a pic of my first shot as soon as I can guys. I'm enjoying this thread. beautiful pix!

Welcome to the group WaveRder. Looking forward to seeing your pics

Yes, Welcome WaveRder... I think you'll find the T2i to be a very worthwhile upgrade!

Hello,

This is my first post on POTN, though I have been reading this and a few other threads with great pleasure over the last couple weeks. I just picked up a t2i with 18-55, 55-250, 75-300 kit lenses a couple weeks ago and have been shooting as much as I can (not that much, unfortunately, as I work 80+ hours a week). Just wanted to say hello and start contributing to this thread, as well as ask for some advice. First, some brief background:
-interested in photography for at least 15 years
-dabbled with a film SLR about 8 years ago for a short time, but fizzled out due to difficulty/lack of access to a proper darkroom and developing tools
-shot canon p&s for the last 10 years, finding myself using manual settings more and more
-picked up an s90 last year, shot over 6000 frames in a two month trip of spain, france, italy, hong kong, taiwan
-impressed by s90 IQ, but found myself desiring even more control over depth of field, usable ISO for low-light conditions, etc
-read up on bodies and felt that t2i would be a perfect entry point
-jumped on the amazon deal for the above mentioned equipment
-while i love the camera it now exposes all the gaps in my knowledge/technique/et​c

-in order of priority, i shoot: indoor candids of friends/family/pets, cars (generally stationary ones), portraits, and street photography.

In addition to technique, I need some advice on a wide lens that would suit my intended uses the most; I just ordered a canon 50 1.4 as I do want to take portraits of my gf on an upcoming trip, and feel like the 1.4 gives me more room to grow into, creamer bokeh, at a relatively affordable price. however, especially for indoor low-light use, i think the focal length may end up being a little long on a crop body, depending on the composition i want to make. what are some lenses in the 10-35mm range that are well-regarded? i'm looking for relative value, so whether it's a 100 dollar lenses that performs remarkably for the price (a la nifty fifty) or a more expensive one, please do share. i hope that makes sense - i definitely do not have the skill to justify a 35L at this early stage, but if that is a worthy goal, i'd like to plan ahead.

finally, i would like to move to full-frame sometime in the future, so lenses that would eventually be usable (e.g. EF instead of EF-S) would be preferable, but knowing that it could be a couple years before my skills are worthy of a body on the 5d2 level, i am open to crop-body only lenses recommendations too.


sorry for the long post but i'm sure many of you went through a similar phase in trying to start your gear collection, mainly i want to do it right the first time and i hope i have done that by starting with the 50 1.4

finally here are a couple very early shots I took with the t2i; i have very minimal post-processing ability right now due to my only functioning computer being an old laptop with almost no hard drive space, i am almost embarrassed to admit i edited these in 1-2 mins with only windows vista photo viewer! (contrast/brightness, saturation/tint, crop is all i could do). i've included the originals so you can critique my ghetto postprocessing as well!

all comments and critiques are welcome, the more critical, the more we can all learn and improve. so have at it rivest all pics with kit 18-55, i haven't ever attached the other two lenses yet, i may keep the 55-250 as i hear it is decent for a kit lens, however the 75-300 will be sold as soon as i can to go towards decreasing the cost of buy-in...i hear it's not really worth keeping...

ploo wrote in post #11256804
...all comments and critiques are welcome, the more critical, the more we can all learn and improve...

Ploo!

Let me be the first to welcome you here!!! It seems to me that you know exactly what you are doing and your images very much show it... whether one is fond of the monochrome image look or not, no one can deny you have achieved very pleasant, moody, and captivating images! The second I actually like the original better as it has a bit more texture to it, but that exit sign is probably best left out as you did on the edit! Regardless of critique, you have 'the eye'.

You have also done your research extremely well!! First of all, I fully agree on your lens sell-out plan: keep the 55-250, sell the 75-300. The 50 f1.4 is an extremely well regarded lens, since I believe the f1.8 is fantastic, I'm sure you'll just love the f1.4, but, you are right, it is too long for indoor shooting unless you plan on extreme closeups all the time! If I had nothing but money to spend, I'd agree with you on the 35L, that's the one to have! Just keep on saving .

For ultra-wide indoors, you are more or less into deep waters. Since you need to multiply by 1.6x even the Ultra wide 17-40 (there are very few ultra wide non EF-S in the Canon lineup) is not wide enough. I'm afraid that if you need wider, the EF-S 10-22 (which is one of the most loved lenses in this forum) is your only alternative! (within Canon, I'll let the others suggest Sigmas and Tamrons, I know nothing of those). The other option is to settle for a nice intermediate and go with the EF-S 15-85. The quality of this lens doesn't cease to amaze me on this forums. You gain a little extra wide and a more considerable reach, and gain USM and a lot of quality.

If low light is your thing, the 17-55 f2.8 is another well cherished and sought-after lens.

I believe you can't go wrong with any of this lenses. If, EF-S is really a concern... then, your best bet is the 17-40 f4L which is really nice on a full frame if you have definite plans of going that way.

I'm sure others will have other takes and other brands as well. Good luck, and please, keep sharing,

Best regards,
Rafa.

same scene diff set
shutter - 1''5, f - 3.5,iso 100, ev - +1 first photo
shutter - 2, f - 4.5, iso 100, ev - +2 2nd photo

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1 more shot different angle

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That's it Peter!!!!

Great improvement!! The second image is just what I was hoping you would get as it was hinted on the image you posted earlier: the trees silhouetted against that lit background. I love how the deck's color come to live and you can almost feel the wood.

I see what you were looking for on the 3rd, instead of a squared camera with the rail, shifting in order to bring more depth to the shot! Alas, you are missing the first 3 inches of the pole... since it's so close to showing the base, it seems cut instead of intentionally framed .

This are now good night shots! I am missing something of color to break the brownness of the images, but wouldn't know what that could be!

Kudos for experimenting! That's the key to learning (and really have fun at it )
Rafa.
ps. Hint* You can also try the picture without the wooden construction... move behind it and get the trees beyond... leave them as silhouettes against the lighted sky, that may be a beautiful image!

So I have to ask all of you some questions since all of you are using a T2i. This is my first DSLR. I find that when I snap a pic and review it on the on board LCD, the pic looks fine, but once I transfer them to my computer it looks overexposed. Next, I feel that most of my photos lack clarity when I zoom in and go to crop. Maybe it's just because I'm very new to using SLRs. I'd appreciate all the feedback! I'll just include a pic from today.. before and after PS

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Edlarom,

Assuming that the edited picture is the one with your monogram, it certainly is much better exposed than the second one which is clearly over exposed.

You have two different issues to address here (well, three, but that'll come later):
1. - You need to find a way to have the LCD screen display what you will eventually see on the monitor
2. - You need to find a way to have the pictures correctly exposed.

For the first issue, you need to set the LCD brightness to 4. Playing around with the settings or trying to get better view in bright sunlight, you may have dialed in a different setting and the manual states that, for judging an image's exposure, brightness 4 is the only option. I have found that to be very accurate. Instructions on page 139 of the manual.

Once the first issue is addressed, you can go into the second issue: try reviewing the image with the histogram on and evaluate if there is a match between what you see and what the histogram tells you. For instance, your original, overexposed image, should have most of the graph biased to the right. The second image would have a clear clipping of the whites but there should be some middles as well.

Now, in order to understand why your camera is measuring exposure as it is, could you please provide info regarding what Metering Mode are you using? I find that Evaluative metering is the most 'good for all situations' type of metering. With the others, if, for instance, you were pointing the center of the frame into the wood beyond the couch, the meter would have tried to expose that properly, blowing out the rest of the image. Once you are under Evaluative metering, check that you have not dialed in any Exposure Compensation. I have a feeling you are with a +1 or a +2 EVs dialed for Exposure Compensation (pg. 87).

If EVs are set to 0, and Evaluative Metering is set and you still get consistently overexposed images, try seeing if you are not taking your camera to places it will have no choice. For instance... if you are shooting manual mode, use the meter to expose. If you are using one of the other modes, be sure your ISO is set to some usable range... for your above shots, ISO200 or even ISO100 would have been enough. Make sure the shutter speed is not set to something like 3 seconds (it doesn't seem like it) since it will end up bright no matter what the other settings are.

Could you provide more info into your shooting mode, metering mode, ISO setting, Auto Lighting Optimizer and Highlight Tone Priority settings, etc. ? What lens are you using? There are a myriad of user-driven choices that may be producing these results.

Good luck, and let us know,
Rafa.
ps. Evaluating sharpness on highly overexposed images will not yield pleasant results... there is color bleeding, haloing, and many other problems. Once you manage good exposures out of the camera, I believe you will be happy with the results.

f2.5
1/100sec.
50mm 1.8
ISO 100

This wasn't a planed shot. I was walking around work and snapping off pics. Actually maybe I should of had it @ 1/200. I'm just learning what all these terms mean and how everything works together. I've been reading constantly for the last 6-7 weeks. I never knew what F stop and aperture were before.