It's here....20D HELP!

[KillRoy]

OK, just got my 20D in the mail today. This is my first time shooting with a "real" camera and I really have no idea what I am doing. I haven't even learned how to set-up the camera properly ops:

Anyway, this is my first picture right out of the camera, no processing. It is shot with a Sigma 70-300mm 1.4/5.6.

I need to know what i need to do to take better pictures LOL

This is an Iraqi bird of some sort just chillin in a tree. It looks dark and not very sharp at all. Here are the settings to the best of my knowledge:

AV Mode
Iso 200
AI Servo
AWB
200mm

here is the normal shot and then a 100% crop




100% crop

[KillRoy]

OK, made some adjustments to the camera and I tried to shoot a Blackhawk here in Baghdad. It looks a lot better than that blasted bird!

[Phil_USN]

I'd say the best way to learn with that camera is to stick it on the lowest ISO and use a simple standard lens to start off with. Go into the menu & set up the shooting settings. don't use auto white balance. your camera is dumb, it's not smart enough to shoot out in the desert and make the right changes to shite balance where there is so much contrast. just set the wb on daylight & run with it. Set the in camera sharpening to zero. You don't want to cheat yourself. you can always sharpen in computer after you upload the photos. As for metering, set it on center weighted. If you want to learn more, it helps to also set the camera on manual. no aperture or shutter priority mode. manually focus the camera as much as possible. basically, take back all the automatic controls for yourself & use the camera as a tool to learn with. you got a very good one to do that with.
have fun & keep your head down.

Phil

[another view]

Like Phil says, your camera is dumb. I say that because it doesn't know that it was the bird that you were photographing, not the sky. The meter read what was in the viewfinder and since it was mostly sky it darkened it a bit. Since it darkened the exposure, it darkened the bird. Opposite would happen if you photographed something mostly dark - it would lighten it.

It's a little soft (as in not sharp), but one or more of a few things could be causing that. First off, the shutter speed should be at least the reciprocal of the focal length (1/200 or faster for a 200mm lens). The camera's Auto Focus sensor could have been on a tree branch near the bird and not on the bird itself. Easy enough to do and it's important to pay a lot of attention to that. Digital images require sharpening - they can be sharpened in the camera or later (or a combination of both), but many of us prefer to leave them a little soft as they are taken. This will leave more control open later for sharpening in Photoshop. This is a better strategy for large prints, and I've just gotten used to working this way.

Photo Critique here is more set up for the aesthetics, and the helicopter shot is cool but the bird shot really doesn't grab my attention. The light isn't interesting and I guess that's my main criticism - not that every shot you take has to be a portfolio piece though. The light is much more interesting in your other shot. The bird is also a small part of the picture which is hard to make work, but not impossible. Center of the frame usually isn't the best place; it rarely works.

I disagree about using the auto modes - but it's a personal preference. Once you get to know the camera and how it will "see" a shot, you'll know when the meter might get fooled and give you what you don't want. That's a good time to use manual, and I do it a lot myself - but most of the time I'm using an auto mode (usually what Canon calls Av) and deciding what aperture will be best for what I'm doing.

[RebelXT-WH2CYK]

setting the sharpness to 0, is that all the way to the left? or is that the mid point of the slider? anything else you should set to 0?

[KillRoy]

THanks for the comments. I will try what you guys suggest! I want to know the same answer as RebelXT......sharpness all the way to the left or leave it in the middle?? What about contrast and the other settings?

[ken1953]

Killroy...see my post in the Nature and Wildlife forum ... Robin? ...
I am like you and just got my first DSLR. And my first bird shot turned out similar to yours. The advise given to me there, may help you, especially PaulNJ's crop of my photo. But as you learned here...everyone on PR is more than willing to help you learn...so keep trying...keep posting and you'll master that 20D soon!!!
Ken

[dmm96452]

Here is a great instruction manual for the 20D. It has helped me quite a bit.

[another view]

I don't shoot Canon so I can't help you with specific settings, but do you want the images to look good right out of the camera or do you want them to have the most flexibility with post-processing ("photoshopping") later? It's all about how you want to work and the amount of time you want to spend.

Generally, I leave the color saturation and sharpening on my DSLR fairly low so I can work with them later. The images don't look bad right out of the camera but I could increase the saturation and sharpening to the point that most of them would print pretty well straight out of the camera. I choose to go this route, but it's not for everyone. A lot of times I don't add color saturation in anyway - just a personal choice here too.

[KillRoy]

Thanks guys!

another view, I keep the color saturation and sharpening at zero on my camera and "TRY" to correct it in photoshop. I don't think I am doing to well with it. Do you do one before the other? Do i use the "unsharp mask" to sharpen? How do you post process your shots?

THanks

[another view]

Use Unsharp Mask last, and look at that 100% area to make the determination of how much of it that you need. You're doing this last because you may have changed the file size for printing, and want to sharpen the final image so you don't get the wierd things that can happen if you do it the other way. Values of 75/2/3 should be a good place to start with most images.

Different versions of Photoshop have different features and keystrokes to get the job done. Be conservative in what you do, over processed images don't look good. I've seen neon-green lawns that obviously aren't what they look like in real life, for example. Pick up Scott Kelby's book "Adobe Photoshop xxx for Digital Photographers". "xxx" = whatever version of Photoshop you have.

[KillRoy]

Thanks a lot! I posted some Bird shots from today in the nature section.....feel free to go over and critique them

THanks again

[livin4lax09]

a good technique is to set the radius of USM on .9, then the amount to 100%, and threshold to 0. Then move the amount up from there. THis will give you good results without haloing.