i know there a bunch of really good photographers on here, i just got a cannon E0S rebel G from the pawn shop to mess around with.
i was wondering if u guys could fill me in on the basic lingo and some tips on photography, like apeture, ISO, shutter speed and when to use them. kinda off topic but im gonna use it mostly to take pictures of the evo. thanks!

 

I'm just gonna copy/paste some stuff I said in the sticky photog thread....brb.

 

Vegasboy, been lookin' at your photography, and you got a good eye (but I'm sure you hear that enough...) I work as a photographer, and thought I might toss some pointers your way, take it or leave it!

First thing, is depth of field. use it. an object will be in focus at a certain distance from your lens to a second distance from your lens. i.e. you have your camera such that an object will be in focus from 20-22 feet from the lense. apart from that, everything will be out of focus.

SHOOT IN RAW (you'll need photoshop CS2 if you do though...PM me if you need "help")

wide aperture (low F stop) = narrow depth of field, lower contrast
narrow aperture (high F stop) = wide depth of field, higher contrast

fast shutterspeed = less motion blur due to shaking, less color saturation
slow shutterspeed = more motion blur due to shaking, more color saturation

of course, you always have to balance shutterspeed and aperture to fine tune your exposure!

Depending on your metering mode and the lighting, and the subject, etc, I find the XT has a tendancy to want to over expose a hair. hit play, and hit info twice so you're looking at a thumbnail of the shot, and the histogram. Make sure nothing important is blinking black in the thumbnail (blown out highlights), and your histogram falls nicely between the left and right border. Keeping the peaks in the histogram below the top is nice too, but not as important. Use your exposure compensation to compensate if not shooting fully manual.

Don't shoot with shutterspeed longer than 1/60th if handheld and shooting stationary objects.

Don't shoot higher than ISO400 if you can at all avoid it. The lower the better.

Shooting in RAW will allow you to fix white-balance and minor over/under exposure, plus it'll leave far more information when doing some saturation/contrast/sharpening post processing.

If you get your hands on CS2, you have an amazing tool at your hands...the merge to HDR feature. Normal film (and your XT) has a 5-stop range (that is, it can see light and dark that are approximately 10 F-settings apart). The natural world and the human eye are FAR more capable than that, and merging photos to HDR increases your picture range to upwards of 8 stops....more than most monitors can show!

To do this, make SURE you're using a tripod. Vary ONLY the shutter speed. not the ISO, not the aperture. Take 5 - 7 shots of the same stationary scene..the whole range from SUPER over exposed to SUPER under exposed, and everything in between. File > automate > merge to HDR, select the files, and VIOLA! amazing shot, with rich detail from high to low.

I'm sure I'll think of more tips as I go, and I'll try to post 'em up!

 

some more basic terms:

Aperture - how wide the iris in the lense opens. low F-stop = wide aperture

shutterspeed - how fast the reflex mirror flips up and down, exposing the film

ISO - the sensativity of the film/digital sensor. Low ISO means it needs more light to expose, high ISO means you get more noise in the picture

 

nice info, but a few questions, what is ISO? how do u balance aperture and shutter speed?

ok and one more thing, lets say i put the shutter speed pretty slow and i place it to where it views the tach, i rev it and take a picture, will the needle look blurred like its moving up? thanks

edit, u beat me to some questions

 

Go out to wherever EP people meet up on Thursday's, I'll be there. I can teach you a little, but moreso just to meet another EVO owner.

 

Hope I answered about ISO. Balancing shutterspeed and aperture depends on the situation and subject. If you're shooting something moving, but you don't want it to be blurry, you need a faster shutterspeed, and you compensate by widening your aperture to get the exposure you want. If you're shooting something stationary (and preferrably using a tripod), use the aperture to set the depth of field and color saturation you want, and adjust your shutterspeed to get the exposure you want. Just play with it and you'll see how it works.

If you want to do the low shutterspeed, rev the tach thing, the best way to do it is to set the camera up on a tripod (either in the drivers seat, or outside the drivers open door) and zoom in on the tach to compose the frame that you want. Set it to a long shutterspeed, adjust the aperture to get the exposure you want, press click and rev the engine!

 

haha i think im going to desert demons this sunday night. ill make sure to take my camera.

what should i do to take pictures at night like in downtown to make the lights downtown shine a lot, what shutter speed and aperture should i use to make it so that u can see the car good too?

 

night shots are hard....shutterspeed is the most important, because a blurry shot is unusable. If nobody's moving very fast, and you have a steady hand, set it to 1/50th sec. preferrably 1/60th or higher. Open your aperture all the way up (lowest possible F-stop). Play with the ISO to get the exposure you want.

If you have a tri-pod and a stationary scene (parked cars, no people, etc), set up the tri-pod, set the aperture to get a good DoF, lower the ISO a bunch, and shoot with a long shutterspeed to get the exposure you want.

 

i love how you had to copy/paste my name there too

 

oh, haha...forgot it was written TO someone....I guess it is more general anyways!

 

ok one more thing, if the ISO is higher in number, would it make it brighter?

 

yup, higher ISO means the film or image sensor is more sensative to light, which means it exposes faster. faster shutterspeeds and narrower apertures can be used. But the tradeoff is noise.

 

this brings me back to my film class days. I got an A and still cant take a good picture. lol

 

good job vegasboy.. very informative! =D