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Any tips on how I can improve my shots?
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Heres a few shots I took with my mates Canon EOS 350D & 18-55mm & 70-300mm. It was my first time out with a DSLR and I’ve since got my own 1000D and have a 55-250mm IS on the way.
Here’s a couple, with the same problem, blurring. I can get the panning ok as you can see but if I want to take a shot without panning I’m stuck.
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Any advice, hints or tips will be greatly appreciated.
i will be happy to share few tips with you if i can see what are you talking about. without photos…i’m sorry
hi jrdn.
just checked the exif info on your photos, I would advise that you use a monopod, set the camera to AV mode, at the widest aperture, (you are using F10 and f9 in most pics) to isolate the subject from the back round, and give you high shutter speeds, select continuous shooting mode.
If you set the widest aperture and still not getting fast shutter speeds, you will have to up the ISO, or if you are near the cars you could use flash. hope this helps, cheersSorry guys about the photos being private, I left it on private rather than clicking the ‘public’ button. They should be viewable now.
fordem If I set the camera to the manual setting & and set it to it’s widest aperture (Which I think is f/4-5.6 between 70-300mm), would I be able to use a shutter speed of 1/500th sec, or would that still be too slow?
If you want to go manual,it could be a little tricky because the lens is f4 -5.6 at the long end. with aperture set at the max ie. wide open, and shutter at 1/500th sec, the camera will take the picture ok, but they could be too bright or too dark, you will have to adjust the ISO to get the correct exposure, if you are starting out i would suggest that you go with the settings I have suggested. that is AV mode (Wide open) for you lens, continuous shooting and focus mode (centre spot) and watch your histogram, of coarse a 70-200mm f2.8 lens would be an ideal lens to start with for any any sport, the shots you have on your site are not that bad,get to know your gear and with a bit of practice it will all fall into place.
ok, stop thinking about L lenses for a moment. your problem is not coming from the lens, is coming from camera settings.
so before you start dreaming about L lenses (is nothing wrong with dreaming) i think it’s time to learn about settings. a good place to start is reading camera’s manual. now, few tips for your sport shots. sport=movement=fast shutter speed. when you take photos of sport actions you have 2 choices:
1. on a sunny day set the camera to AV mode, open the lens at maximum ( the lowest f/ number) , use AI servo, continuos shooting at let the shutter speed to take care of itself (or you can adjust it if it’s need)
2. on a cloudy day set the camera to TV mode, set the shutter speed pretty high (1/400 or 1/500 for fields sports like soccer and 1/800 or higher for racing cars) and adjust the exposure using the lens aperture (the f/ number)shooting sport an manual mode is not a really good idea for the moment or you have to be very, very good and very, very fast with the adjustments. of course you need practice as much as you can but don’t forget camera’s manual, it is very helpful. let’s say, open the manual at page 55(it is just an example) where is explained the AV mode. read the page. read it again. take your camera, set it as the manual says and 3 days just play around with that settings until you learn what that can do. after that move to page 56 where TV mode is explained and play again for another 3 days. soon it will become a second nature.
voicu wrote:
ok, stop thinking about L lenses for a moment. your problem is not coming from the lens, is coming from camera settings.
so before you start dreaming about L lenses (is nothing wrong with dreaming) i think it’s time to learn about settings. a good place to start is reading camera’s manual. now, few tips for your sport shots. sport=movement=fast shutter speed. when you take photos of sport actions you have 2 choices:
1. on a sunny day set the camera to AV mode, open the lens at maximum ( the lowest f/ number) , use AI servo, continuos shooting at let the shutter speed to take care of itself (or you can adjust it if it’s need)
2. on a cloudy day set the camera to TV mode, set the shutter speed pretty high (1/400 or 1/500 for fields sports like soccer and 1/800 or higher for racing cars) and adjust the exposure using the lens aperture (the f/ number)shooting sport an manual mode is not a really good idea for the moment or you have to be very, very good and very, very fast with the adjustments. of course you need practice as much as you can but don’t forget camera’s manual, it is very helpful. let’s say, open the manual at page 55(it is just an example) where is explained the AV mode. read the page. read it again. take your camera, set it as the manual says and 3 days just play around with that settings until you learn what that can do. after that move to page 56 where TV mode is explained and play again for another 3 days. soon it will become a second nature.
Would 1/800 be too fast for shooting at a rally under trees?
if the car is moving at 100 km/h i presume that 1/800 might not be enough. the best is to try it yourself. by practicing you’ll learn
First thing to do as said already, is set the camera to AI Servo mode, you had it set to AI Focus so will only focus the first time you 1/2 press the shutter. When you select AI Servo mode it will track the car all time while you have the shutter 1/2 pressed.
Looks like you were using 1/250s and 1/160s as the shutter speed, this isn’t particular slow. For almost all of my motorsport photos I would normally use TV mode with the shutter set from 1/160s and below. If the car is coming towards you head on at speed, you will need higher alright, but if its just after a bend its still possible to use slower shutter speeds.
1/50sSo to start with set the camera to AI Servo,
You should set the focus point, centre is probably the best place on the 350D to use, but can move it for composition.
Use TV mode, and set the shutter speed start probably as high as you can go with the lens and see how the photos turn out. You can reduce the shutter speed then to get motion into the photos, or to increase the sharpness a bit, as lens don’t perform the best at their widest aperture.
Use ISO to give you higher shutter speeds when the lens is at the max aperture, but maxing out the ISO will cause noise in the photo, so there has to be a trade off between the two.Hi there,
Check out this post as to how to embed from flickr. I don’t see any photos showing, but links to the pages that the photos are on.
resize-post-images-using-irfanview-flickr-updated-t34927.html
Let me know if you have any questions.
thanks!
Mark wrote:
Hi there,
Check out this post as to how to embed from flickr. I don’t see any photos showing, but links to the pages that the photos are on.
resize-post-images-using-irfanview-flickr-updated-t34927.html
Let me know if you have any questions.
thanks!
Thanks Mark, problem hopefully solved. Any tips on how to improve my shots, let me know.
Hi,
I saw your shots. Well they were not bad infact intersting but I would like to suggest you that set your camera to AV Mode and open the lens to the maximum. Manual mode should not be set as it is not a good idea when you want that perfect shot.
All the info so far is spot on…but what you really need to do as some of the posts said is go out there and try
different settings on your camera rather that sticking to what you originally set it at…practice as they say makes
perfect and that is of course the beauty of digital…its free and the delete button is the best part of digital cameras.
Read the manual and get to know your camera and gear that you already own…of course dream about owning
better gear but it still wo’nt make any difference if you own the best gear in the world and do’nt know how to use it.Your asking will 1/800sec stop the action…go out ant try it…its not something that anyone here can answer…all
situations are different and you can get a perfectly sharp panning image as has been shown here at 1/160 sec or lower.
Its a matter of trial and error…we all have been there…I have the evidence at home on the computer.Just to end…whats with the wedding shot on the last post dellaharty ?? I think you should give an opinion but
do’nt try to promote yourself in the answer if its not relevent to the question. Put your post in the appropiate
section on the site and I am sure you will get proper feedback.Noel.
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