First DSLR Photo

[.bin]

Just opened my new camera, and the first ever picture taken was............

Shot in RAW, and understand the balances are off and it's blurry, but I was fiddling with some settings being my first shot with a DSLR

[witalit]

Cool hopefully many more to come! Slight over exposed in the centre as you mentioned and some kind of shadow I guess from the camera?

[Argote]

My first photos with my DSLR were nothing special either. You'll have to go trhough some of them to "get it" and start getting what you want from your camera. In other words: practice, practice, practice!

[chconline Veteran]

Turn the flash off or using an external flash :p

Welcome to the club. Who needs an education/car/house. Spend it all on photography equipment :laugh:

[witalit]

Turn the flash off or using an external flash :p

Welcome to the club. Who needs an education/car/house. Spend it all on photography equipment :laugh:

Exactly not about a mortgage! All about a new lens :D

[.bin]

Thanks guys. I've just started to use the manual function on my camera to fiddle with exposures and apertures. Hopefully more to come!

[Argote]

Aperture and Speed Priority modes are your friend early on :)

[chconline Veteran]

Meh, for most photos people take, you can do full automatic and it would turn out really well... why spend 20 minutes adjusting every setting to get the same results?

(However there are times where it is appropriate to adjust quite literally everything in M down to the amount flash power... woot)

[HawkMan]

why take in automatic, when A or S will give you far better results, and more importantly the result you want, with no time to adjust.

if you're gonna shoot auto, get a point and shoot or a bridge.

[maash]

opinion: Don't take photos with your camera built in flash, it really doesn't justify your SLR. invest in a decent external flash, you will find out v soon its really worth it

Just opened my new camera, and the first ever picture taken was............

Shot in RAW, and understand the balances are off and it's blurry, but I was fiddling with some settings being my first shot with a DSLR

here is another tip:

move your DSLR settings to M, half press the shooting button and focus on the subject, notice the exposure bar, scroll the dot or line on it to between 0 and -0.3 and you will thank me the rest of your life. Oh and make sure your White balance is never auto, set it to the conditions

[witalit]

why take in automatic, when A or S will give you far better results, and more importantly the result you want, with no time to adjust.

if you're gonna shoot auto, get a point and shoot or a bridge.

Agreed. Automatic is for lazy people :D

[maash]

Agreed. Automatic is for lazy people :D

true, if you are going to use Automatic its better to buy a Canon G11

Aperture and Speed Priority modes are your friend early on :)

for some reason A and S modes still don't do it for me, M for real quality, i know it takes time to get everything in order but worth it in the end

[remus_lupin]

here is another tip:

move your DSLR settings to M, half press the shooting button and focus on the subject, notice the exposure bar, scroll the dot or line on it to between 0 and -0.3 and you will thank me the rest of your life. Oh and make sure your White balance is never auto, set it to the conditions

Coming from someone who has shot thousands upon thousands upon thousands of photos... as long as your shooting RAW (which he is) why would you set your WB to the conditions... Auto more often than not is PERFECT. My WB has never left auto, maybe 1/100 photos I need to adjust because I could manually make the WB a bit better than auto.

If you weren't shooting RAW than yeah WB is a big deal...

However, if you are going to be shooting in the same lighting conditions for a while then sure, why not just go manual WB, but then you may forget to change it back. Just leave it auto.

[maash]

Coming from someone who has shot thousands upon thousands upon thousands of photos... as long as your shooting RAW (which he is) why would you set your WB to the conditions... Auto more often than not is PERFECT. My WB has never left auto, maybe 1/100 photos I need to adjust because I could manually make the WB a bit better than auto.

If you weren't shooting RAW than yeah WB is a big deal...

However, if you are going to be shooting in the same lighting conditions for a while then sure, why not just go manual WB, but then you may forget to change it back. Just leave it auto.

i noticed you have a nikon, they have a better much AWB than Canon. just talking from experience with my canon. I guess you are right about RAW but thats only if you are just willing to shoot raw and then spending hours editing your pictures to make sure the output from RAW is perfect (post adobe).

[remus_lupin]

i noticed you have a nikon, they have a better much AWB than Canon. just talking from experience with my canon. I guess you are right about RAW but thats only if you are just willing to shoot raw and then spending hours editing your pictures to make sure the output from RAW is perfect (post adobe).

Well, I've never spent "hours" on a batch of photos, but I know what you mean, I guess some people could, even if I take say 400 photos, I will get through them all in a couple mins (if they are in same lighting conditions you can apply same settings to all photos easily in LR). But no, you are totally right, if you are not shooting RAW, than yeah you should manual set WB, I just figured because he said he'd shot this in RAW he plans on doing that indefinitely, in which case he is already editing certain things, a WB change will add maybe 20 seconds (tops)

JPEG = Manual WB

RAW = AWB unless you really want to go manual (but isn't necessary)

EDIT: just another note (sort of contradicting what I said earlier) if you are going to manually adjust each photo individually then yes I have spent an hour on a batch of even 100 photos.

[maash]

Well, I've never spent "hours" on a batch of photos, but I know what you mean, I guess some people could, even if I take say 400 photos, I will get through them all in a couple mins (if they are in same lighting conditions you can apply same settings to all photos easily in LR). But no, you are totally right, if you are not shooting RAW, than yeah you should manual set WB, I just figured because he said he'd shot this in RAW he plans on doing that indefinitely, in which case he is already editing certain things, a WB change will add maybe 20 seconds (tops)

JPEG = Manual WB

RAW = AWB unless you really want to go manual (but isn't necessary)

EDIT: just another note (sort of contradicting what I said earlier) if you are going to manually adjust each photo individually then yes I have spent an hour on a batch of even 100 photos.

I guess the OP should invest in something like Adobe Lightroom (cheaper) or Adobe Photoshop (unlimited options/plugins). I have, its worth it in the end

[remus_lupin]

I guess the OP should invest in something like Adobe Lightroom (cheaper) or Adobe Photoshop (unlimited options/plugins). I have, its worth it in the end

I only use LR, and it does everything I need, I would recommend that, unless (like you say) you are going to use the more advanced features of photoshop.

LR is GREAT (either way I would recommend it to catalogue all your photos)

[Argote]

Coming from someone who has shot thousands upon thousands upon thousands of photos... as long as your shooting RAW (which he is) why would you set your WB to the conditions... Auto more often than not is PERFECT. My WB has never left auto, maybe 1/100 photos I need to adjust because I could manually make the WB a bit better than auto.

If you weren't shooting RAW than yeah WB is a big deal...

However, if you are going to be shooting in the same lighting conditions for a while then sure, why not just go manual WB, but then you may forget to change it back. Just leave it auto.

I agree with this, AWB is very nice most of the times. However you can always edit it in PP for when it's not. Setting WB in-camera is a waste of shooting time (which IMO is more valuable than processing time). Besides, you can always batch-edit the WB if you're talking about a lot of photos.

[.bin]

I have CS5, I just haven't done any postwork in Photoshop yet. I haven't had a chance to use my camera again (yet). Damn work taking over my life. :)

[HawkMan]

I guess the OP should invest in something like Adobe Lightroom (cheaper) or Adobe Photoshop (unlimited options/plugins). I have, its worth it in the end

Well Photoshop is no repalcement for LR, and LR is no replacement for Photoshop. personally for a photographer, I think LR is more important, but having photoshop to will be great. with Lr changing the WB is a few seconds per photo. and then you can do all the other "developing" that makes it such a much better photo to. Like converting to BW where apropriate and adjusting for the right BW look.