1AP12NV

Hey all

I posted up a while back about considering taking the DSLR plunge.

I did so and now happily have my XTi!

Just wanted to say hi. I've got a lot of reading and practicing ahead of me, but eventually I'll post up some shots whenever I feel I have something that isn't horribly bad

-Jeff

e3opian

Congrats! You get the kit lens or go with something else? I'm an XTi user from your region as well so if you need some help let me know.

F1-Fanatic

Post what you think is horribly bad and ask questions.. There are a lot of good people here who are willing to help. We ALL started in the same place.

1AP12NV

Thanks for the encouragement! I may take you up on that offer e3opian (and I will also post up some images with questions F1-Fanatic)! I ended up just opting for the kit lens, but I imagine that I'll be getting something else in the not too far future (the kit lens just feels kind of cheap to me). I'm just waiting until I'm educated enough to know what kind of glass to buy

It's pretty daunting but I'm trying to just take it a step of the time. Already I'm not content to shoot in auto and have stepped up to the "creative" modes as Canon terms them. I've been playing with the aperature priority and shutter priority modes as I don't trust myself to coordinate the two yet to gain the proper exposure.

I've also gone through the "virtual camera" tutorial that I saw on a post here recently which was helpful to get a basic understanding of the relationship betweein shutter speed and aperature. I plan to read the "Understanding Exposure" book as well as a few others. I just have to shoot Amazon an order

I have run into one thing:

From what I've read the f stop value affects not only the amount of light exposure, but also the depth of focus. I've observed the former, but not so much the latter. Stopping it down or up seems to barely change the DOF for me. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong but I'm kind of curious as to why its not making a bigger difference. It seems to me that just changing the focus (either by selecting a different AF point or by manually focusing) was a much more effective way to control what was in and out of focus. Am I missing something?

e3opian

Wait... now I know where I recognize your screen name from. You designed Skip's N.E.R.D logo! Congrats again branching out in to photography... I'll definitely be looking forward to seeing where your creativity gets you in this new medium.

AgS2K

Not sure I understand: are you just looking through the viewfinder or taking pictures?

If you're just looking through the viewfinder, you won't see any difference when changing the f stop unless your camera has a button that stops the lens down for you (not sure that model does.)

If you're not seeing any difference in depth of field in your pictures, are you focusing at something close to you? If you're just pointing the camera at the landscape, it could be that everything is pretty much at infinity focus already and increased depth of field may not be that apparent.

e3opian

DOF Preview on the XTi is the black button on the front of the body towards the bottom LHS of the lens (when looking through the viewfinder). The viewfinder is so dark though that it is very hard to use.

GT_2003

depth of field is also affected by distance. It gets shallower as the point of focus gets closer to the camera. To really see the change in DOF, focus on an object, say the middle of a ruler, from about 6 feet away. Take a series of shots at each aperture from wide open to stopped down all the way. The wide open shots will have less depth of field.

Depth of field effects are most dramatic with fast lenses, as the wider apertures result in very narrow DOF at closer distances. The longer the focal length, the narrower the depth of field at a given aperture and focus distance.

1AP12NV

You know what, that makes a lot of sense. I think it was because I was taking a shot where a lot of the objects were quite far away (pretty much a landscape).

As e3opian mentioned, the XTi does have a button to stop down the aperture through the viewfinder, but all it does is make the picuture really dark (which is understandable), but it makes it really hard to see what's going on. Since you would compensate for this darkness by keeping the shutter open longer, I'm not sure how you could get away with having the viewfinder still be bright while holding the stop down button.

I'm going to play with GT_300 suggestion and shoot some still life like that this evening.

I think the problem was I was shooting outdoors.

While I'm "experimenting" I'm considering hooking the camera up to a laptop sitting next to me so I can get some instant feedback on the effects the camera settings have (even though the XTi has a fairly large display I still find it hard to tell what is really sharp in focus and what is not). I think my camera came with software to let me just shoot and have the photos saved to the computer if its hooked up (not sure though, will have to look into it).

Still, thanks for the help I don't plan to be a stranger!

1AP12NV

Guilty as charged

I just can't help myself, I love taking on new hobbies. I think I just like spending money......