# Canon eos 450d



## tko187 (31 Jul 2008)

Hi guys i just bought the above camera, only took a few pics. If anyone has any experience with one of these cameras would love some guidance with all the functions. Its my first dslr camera and i dont really know much about them. Its another thing i need to learn about. London Dragon i seen your shots really nice, i know you sent me an earlier message regarding lenses and stuff but unfortunately i dont have this anymore, so if you could help would be good, regarding filters and using the manual focus. Thanks.


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## LondonDragon (1 Aug 2008)

Which lens did you get with the camera? Is it the standard 17-55mm?


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## tko187 (1 Aug 2008)

Hi LD i got the 18-55 with the camera, have been messing about with it but still lots to learn, do you know of any good forums?? Im still trying to work out what iso, aperture, and all that stuff is, pretty technical stuff, i guess it will take a while.


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## Mark Evans (1 Aug 2008)

firstly use auto focus.next try to use the AV setting on the small wheel top left?...then use the top left wheel to select the f stop required eg.6.3 or 7.1 this is  aperture priority. 

its a common setting alot of photographers use.if your not used to the camera and its functions dont be using manual and shutter speed priority just yet. set the iso to about 500 say? should give you half decent shutter speeds, if not bring tour f stop down to its smallest number im guessing about f 4.5. if your still not getting good shutter speeds up the iso. remeber to meter for the plants!

dial the camera down a full stop too, to give you quicker shutter speeds (if you use raw software this aint a problem)

i get with  iso 500 f4.5, a shutter speed of about 100 or 125th easy enough to freeze the fish. it all depends on what lighting you have though.

when it comes to photographing properly go with f11 or there abouts. get everything pin sharp in focus. oh and get  the tripod out.  

hope this helps. 

mark


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## passerby* (1 Aug 2008)

owwww 450d....the newest canon out..sweet..just experiment and play with your camera ..learn by doing.. plus read the little Manuel booklet that came with it i actually found it useful on explaining what all the setting do....good luck
and my favourite setting is defo "av" and just select the exposure u want manually..
cheers.... passerby


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## Mark Evans (2 Aug 2008)

passerby* said:
			
		

> my favourite setting is defo "av" and just select the exposure u want manually..



AV all the way   



			
				passerby* said:
			
		

> plus read the little Manuel booklet that came with it i actually found it useful on explaining what all the setting do....



it comes with all canon cameras and is brilliant little thing


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## tko187 (2 Aug 2008)

I know , i know, im reading the instruction book, i just thought id ask around aswell while im at it. The More information the more better guys..Thanks.


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## LondonDragon (3 Aug 2008)

Start showing some photos, don't be shy


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## ceg4048 (3 Aug 2008)

LondonDragon said:
			
		

> Start showing some photos, don't be shy




I agree. You can only become a better photographer by taking pictures. It will be fairly obvious what you need to do to improve once we can take a look at the shots. You should also invest in some type of image software. This is where the finishing touches are made to the images and it is almost as important as the camera itself. Few people discuss this item but it's actually a very important element of digital photography. You ought to be able to find an old version of Adobe Photoshop for a low price for example.

Cheers,


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## LondonDragon (3 Aug 2008)

I use Nikon Capture to edit my photos, small application and you can do a lot of manupulations with the photos there, all my photos posted in this forum have been edited and resized with Nikon Capture Editor.


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## Dave Spencer (3 Aug 2008)

I use Lightroom and CS3 for editing. 8) 

Dave.


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## tko187 (3 Aug 2008)

Ok i will post some pics......but be warned!! I am purely just clicking away just now messing with the setting trying to get to know my camera. Will definitely post some today. Thanks .


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## LondonDragon (3 Aug 2008)

Dave Spencer said:
			
		

> I use Lightroom and CS3 for editing. 8)
> Dave.


Also have both of these software packages but they are more complex and all I need to do is resize the photo, apply some USM and increase or decrease contrast/Brightness, just find the Nikon Capture package the easiest package ever.
Most people will just think its only usefull for users with Nikon gear but has nothing to do with it, its just a photo editing software, it does have built software for Nikon cameras that can actually customize the curves in the camera, but thats not relevant to other non Nikon users.


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## ceg4048 (3 Aug 2008)

Yep, this is true. Imaging software is like ice cream. Everyone has a favourite flavor. The important thing is to understand how to use the features to get the look you are after and to correct some of the weaknesses of the image. tko there should have been some software with your 450D. Have you loaded it?

Cheers,


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## tko187 (3 Aug 2008)

Hey Clive, i havent loaded the software as of yet, i will do it today. First ill post some pics.....so you can all laugh at me


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## tko187 (3 Aug 2008)

Ok guys here a few snaps, just for you...take it easy now.

Just one of the sky





My otto on moss, out of focus!








My son, i blurred the background.




















Yup thats me TKO187





Anyway thats me just having a go, no tripod and tinkering about with the settings.


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## tko187 (3 Aug 2008)

Heres two i edited about with the disc i received with the camera. You can compare from last post. Thanks for looking.


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## Ed Seeley (3 Aug 2008)

I really can't comment on the pictures other than saying they're better than most of mine but I did just want to say that your Oto isn't an Oto!  It's a Chinese Sucking Loach or _Gyrinocheilus aymonieri_.  They get much bigger than Otos and are no way near as good algae eaters IME.


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## Mark Evans (3 Aug 2008)

hope you dont mind me asking, what kind of editing did you do? ive put both pics side by side inphotoshop and cant see a difference. just curious   

at least your enthusiastic.

mark


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## ceg4048 (3 Aug 2008)

Here's my take,

Photo 1 is OK but you should have either cropped away the branch on the lower left or included more of the tree for interest and variation. That's a compositional thing though. Technically it's fine.

Photo 2 you've already guessed it. That's a cardinal sin to have the main subject unfocused. There are a few possible reasons:

1.Were you using autofocus? With close up shots you need to take control of focus. The camera may not know what the subject is that close. 

2. It could also be that you were too close for that particular lens to focus. Lenses have a minimum focus distance so backing off may have solved that.

3. Your shutter speed may have been too slow for hand holding the camera. You need to be mindful of that with low light scenes. What's weird is that it looks like you used a flash because the lower portion of the eye has a highlight. If you did use a flash then I would suspect reason number 2 because flashes are capable of freezing the subject and avoid blur. This is actually a very instructive shot because you need to think about what elements in this composition that ought to be in focus. Normally, I would want everything from the fishes dorsal fin forward to be in focus with the sharpest focus being the fishes eye. Unfocused foreground annoys me more than unfocused background so here is where I would try smaller apertures and use the depth of field preview to try to ensure foreground and fish eye focus.

Photo 3 again seems less than sharp. The water drop should sparkle and instead it seems vague. Again, you might have been too close. Another problem with this is that the main flower seems overexposed. This is an area where your imaging software can help pull back the brightness of the flower.

Photo 4 I like the composition of this shot and you were right to blur the background with a large aperture. As you can see though, the window is over exposed as a result and is more than a bit distracting. It might have been better to crop the window out. Your software can make the window less distracting by lowering the brightness. It also would have benn better to lose the Gameboy or whatever. The lesson here is that bright objects outside the main area draw the viewers eye away from the main subject and generally weakens the composition. Beginners looking through the viewfinder often get tunnel vision on the subject and fail to scan the rest of the scene.

Photo 5 is a tough shot from a lighting perspective, but again, one that can be fixed in two ways. The camera meters the scene for brightness and is overwhelmed by the brightness of the sky so it "stops down" or uses a fast shutter speed to stop too much light from entering. But the trees are not as bright as the sky so not enough of their reflected light can enter. So there is almost total loss of information in the trees as well as their shadows.

If you intend to shoot a lot of outdoor scenes like this it may be worth buying something called a graduated neutral density filter (Graduated ND). This glass filter has the top half dark and gradually fades to transparent. When mounted on the lens the dark portion blocks much of the light from the sky while the transparent area below allows all of the light transmission from the land. The cameras sensors then does not become overwhelmed by the sky's light.

Lacking this type of filter the only way to fix this is through your software, which can brighten dark pixels and darken bright pixels.

Photo 6 does a better job of even lighting but there is some distracting orange in the lower left corner. There is still something not sharp about this though. Again, manual focus and depth of field preview is called for here. Pay attention to what the camera says it is using for shutter speed and aperture in auto mode. Then, take the camera out of auto mode and into manual and play with the aperture settings and ISO to ensure at least 1/125th shutter speed and good sharpness.

Photo 7 suffers from similar compositional errors. The power lines above are completely unacceptable. You would have been better served getting on you tummy to lower the perspective to cut out the lines. I also find the people distracting so if they serve no purpose compositionally they should be eliminated.

Photo 8 is nice. It would have been nicer if you could have used a higher shutter speed to freeze the bubbles but you would have paid a high penalty and risk underexposure. Using a higher ISO would help. remember that doubling the ISO effectively gives you exactly one f-stop. Try taking this shot again multiple times, each time doubling the ISO and see what penalty you pay in terms of noise and grain.

Photo 8, well what can I say? The CLK of that vintage is one of the most beautiful cars Mercedes have ever made. I had the 320 hardtop once. This car also has the best and most effective headlamps ever invented (if it's the Xenon version.) I could always see where I was going at night down dark country lanes. In this shot though the headlamps as well as your white trainers are overexposed and so you've lost detail in these areas. We should be able to count your shoelaces. Software can fix this but fixing overexposure is more difficult than fixing underexposure.

Perhaps this is more criticism than you ever wanted to hear..  .

Cheers,


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## JamesM (3 Aug 2008)

Clive, I wish more people were like you


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## ceg4048 (3 Aug 2008)

Yeah, but then I'd be like Agent Smith in Matrix Reloaded. Can you imagine a world filled with me, me me? And me too...  

Cheers,


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## Mark Evans (3 Aug 2008)

ahhh, i wondered what you meant when you replied to my pm the other day.... so im free now? cool


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## ceg4048 (4 Aug 2008)

saintly said:
			
		

> ahhh, i wondered what you meant when you replied to my pm the other day.... so im free now? cool


Agent Smith's response would be something like; "We're not here because we're free, we're here because we're NOT free..."  


Looked a bit deeper at the exif data on the 450. It looks like tko is using fully automatic metering and that might explain some of the problems. I also checker the manual and it says that this is an IS lens (Image Stabilization). This means that the lens should compensate for camera shake, but you have to turn it on. You may want to check to see if the IS switch on the lens is set to the ON position. The following are illustrations of why you need to learn your software, and I mean learn it well because a camera does not think for you, and a camera does not see the world as you do. It's just a tape recorder.

Lesson number 1 is that in most shots, not everything in the frame is useful or even contributes to the composition. In the original shot there was some kind of orange mushroom in the lower left corner and someones bucket on the lower right. Also the top part of the image serves no function except perhaps to show height perspective. I suspect though that this was not your objective in the shot. Probably you wanted to show the deep mauve of the tree's leaves. The camera does a lot of filtration but not the same as our brain so the original colors get muted, whereas we remember the scene with more dramatic colors. Look at the comparison when all the extraneous things are removed from the scene, with the image sharpened, and the color restored:

Before:






After: Again, one could argue about how much was cropped out. This is just an example.





Before: In the original shot the color of the rose was oversaturated to the point where you could no longer see the detail in the petals. When colors become over-saturated this is called "clipping".  Again there is a problem with blurring. The exif data shows 1/60th of a second at f5.6. You should, when possible try to use f8 or f11 on this lens because that is where it's performance is optimized. Use the Av mode as this allows you to set the aperture. If the camera calculates a shutter speed below 1/60 then just crank the ISO up until the shutter speed gets faster, like 1/125th.





After: A bit of sharpening and lowering of the highlights enabled recovery of some detail in the pink. Can you see how the dew drops are sharper and you can actually see through them? These are subtle adjustments that contribute to a better image.





Before: Instead of worrying about blurring the background, worry about getting the subject right first. Omar's right eye is in focus but his left eye is slightly unfocused. This due to the shallow depth of field at f5.6. The window light is really distracting. Using a flash so close often creates odd shadows, reveals surface imperfections and washes out skin tone.





After: We eliminate the video game controller and the window by close cropping. The we reduce the highlights to get a better, richer skin tone and rosier lips. I suspect Omar looks more like this with a deeper bronze tone in the skin. Sharpening the image gives him clearer, brighter eyes, which unfortunately makes it more evident that the left eye is defocused. Again, if you had used a smaller aperture like f8 or f11 you would have gotten both eyes sharper. When all those distractions are gone the image conveys a feeling that we are looking at a confident, happy kid who is responding to the photographer. This was the whole point of taking the picture in the first place.





Hope this gives you some ideas about metering, framing and cropping.

Cheers,


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## tko187 (4 Aug 2008)

Hey Clive thanks for all the info and the in depth reply. As i said i just clicked away i wasnt really worried about whats in the background (wires , windows, my white sneakers) Im not trying to create anything as of yet, i just used auto focus i think. I will start using av mode. It helped me a lot anyway as now i know what i am doing wrong and also what setting and functions i can use to edit picture afterwards. This was the fist time using the camera and i didnt even try much of the settings, sorry about the window light, xbox controller and other things. I wil start to think about these things but as of now i just want to learn about my camera and what it can do. It shouldnt take me long as i have great advice coming from different people here (very helpful indeed). Im just thinking as if i were starting a planted tank, at first i thought what have i got myself into but then slowly with all the help i got it became a lot more easier and enjoyable. Thank you clive and to anybody else who answered to my thread. Ill be snapping away and posting more pics so Clive can edit them for me...hehe  Take care.


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