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Getting the best out of the 550d

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madgedeepers

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Hi

I am new to the forum and hope to tap your collective mind. I have just upgraded to the 550d body from the 1000d. How can I get the best out of the 550d? Any tips or advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
MadgeDeepers
 
Why did you upgrade? I hope because you thought that the 550D would be able to do things for you that the 1000D couldn't do, or that it would do some things better than the 1000D does.

If that wasn't the reason, or if you reason wasn't that the 1000D quit working so you upgraded to the current best Rebel, then I have no answer for you.

If one of the above reasons was why you got the 550D, then I urge you to explore the things you think the 550D can do better than the 1000D, and to continue to enjoy taking photographs and learning your camera. And do spend time reading the manual. It really is worth its weight in gold. Well, maybe silver unless you've had a beer or two.

Good luck.

FF
 
that is about it.
 
Thanks for the replies. I do intend to read the manuals etc. However, I was looking for advice from people who have made the upgrade and wanted to know about the features they most appreciated on the 550d (apart from the HD movie).
 
I hope I can add something more useful than the previous replies, since I recently bought a 550D :-) But I've never used a 1000D so don't know the exact feature differences, but for the 550D I'd recommend:

a) Turn off Auto Lighting Optimizer (on the Q screen on the right). It'll just mess up any attempts at exposure compensation (when using JPEG).

b) Lock the ISO using the dedicated ISO button. After all the particular review comments about being able to set a maximum ISO on the 550D (when using Auto-ISO mode), I was surprised to find it could simply be set at whatever you want using the ISO button. Even though the 550D has very good noise control, frankly I don't want any grainy shots, so I just lock it at 100. It also makes exposure compensation using good old shutter speed and aperture much easier, without the camera sticking it's oar in and fiddling with ISO! Call me old fashioned...

c) Exposure compensation step size: change from 1/3 stops to 1/2 stops. Reduces the amount of grinding around the control dial when setting aperature or shutter manually.
 
What ever you do don't lock the iso at 100. One big advantage you will get is better high iso so don't be frightened to use it. If you stick to iso 100 you will get many blurred shots due to slow shutterspeed needed when in low light. Use the shutterspeed or aperture needed to get the shot you want and either adjust the iso to suit or use auto iso which is very usefull sometimes.

Another way to get better results is to use a decent lens. The is kit lens is ok but you will get better results with a better lens like the 15-85mm is or a 17-55mm 2.8 or a prime like the 50 f1.8 or f1.4
madgedeepers said:
Thanks Reactive, that's exactly the sort of informarion I was looking for :-)
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/kphphotography
http://www.surreyphoto.co.uk
 
If you don't like to post process on the computer, you could bump the saturation, contrast and sharpening in the camera a little bit to get punchier jpegs. I've also recently made the switch from a Digic 3 to Digic 4 camera, not for an upgrade but as a stolen camera replacement. I was suprised to find some of the updated features pretty useful (video, higher res screen, high ISO) and feel like I'm set on a camera body for a long while. I'm sure they'll find something, but I can't think of much more you would want in a Rebel camera at this point. I would recommend finding out what focal lengths you use the most and try to find a decent prime or zoom lens as an upgrade to what you have.
 
Someone suggested locking the ISO. I can't see how you can lock it to a particular speed. Any suggestions? What I have done is set the max ISO to say 400. This means that the camera won't try to go beyond that unles you want it too.
 
KPH said:
What ever you do don't lock the iso at 100. One big advantage you will get is better high iso so don't be frightened to use it. If you stick to iso 100 you will get many blurred shots due to slow shutterspeed needed when in low light. Use the shutterspeed or aperture needed to get the shot you want and either adjust the iso to suit or use auto iso which is very usefull sometimes.

Another way to get better results is to use a decent lens. The is kit lens is ok but you will get better results with a better lens like the 15-85mm is or a 17-55mm 2.8 or a prime like the 50 f1.8 or f1.4
madgedeepers said:
Thanks Reactive, that's exactly the sort of informarion I was looking for :-)
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/kphphotography
http://www.surreyphoto.co.uk
Click to expand...
Yeah, ditto. You can decide what iso is the point where you'd get more noise than you want, but from the reviews I've read they usually say that iso100-iso400 is identical. And a lot of times the difference in detail is small enough you couldn't even tell if you printed both pictures as 8x10. Losing a little bit of detail is way, way, way better than having to low of a shutter speed and getting unintended blur, or to little depth of field (like taking a pic with 2 people in it, and one of them is out of focus).
 
There is a button labeled ISO near the shutter release button. Push it, then use the wheel to select the desired ISO. You are now "locked" on that ISO until you repeat these steps to select a different one.
 
I should point out that I had many years experience wth 35mm film SLRs before I recently returned to SLRs with the 550D. I agree you don't have to choose ISO 100, and 400 is probably OK on the 550D, but I find it much simpler to lock the ISO at something or other as it's unnecessary to have it changing on every shot, just as it was with film. On rare occasions in bad light you might have been forced to 'push' your film a couple of stops to get a fast enough shutter speed or required depth of field, and the same remains true for digital. ISO doesn't need to be changed unless absolutely necessary, and I reckon it's best to prevent the camera automatically choosing something silly without you noticing, and spoiling your shot.

So give it a try - lock your ISO at whatever value you feel is acceptable - perhaps 400 on the 550D - and make your photography a bit simpler!
 
Please do not lock the ISO until you have mastered everything else on the camera. There is a time a place for locking when just starting out is not that time. I would max the ISO out at 1600. The T2i does a great job with lower light. Now the faster the lens is the better the low light capabilities. Low light is one of the things the T2i does better than the Rebels that came before it. (Why do I hear Darth Vader’s voice when I say that?) :)

Also if you have not moved to RAW photography I would highly recommend it.

Also if you move up to higher ISO setting (3200 +) then I would also look at Lightroom 3. Its noise reduction is wonderful for restoring a photo that is grainy due to high ISO.
 
I use that practically every time I take the camera out but it never occured to me that it was a lock since I am constantly changing it, usually to get the lowest practical ISO. Doh!

One lesson I have got from this is that it might be a good 'default' setting' to set Menu> ISO Auto Set this to Max 400. Then set the ISO lock to Auto.

That way, if you are in a hurry you know that even when using Av or Tv (which is what I use 90%) is not going to go too high.
 
That makes sense. I never use auto ISO myself. Even when shooting in AV which is most of the time for me I manually set the ISO. I really only like to let the camera have control of one aspect of the exposure -- usually the shutter speed unless I am trying to do something special with an action shot and then I switch to TV or M. It also seems like you could go higher than ISO 400 without much worry on the 550D probably at least 800 or even 1600.
 
Salchert Photo said:
That makes sense. I never use auto ISO myself. Even when shooting in AV which is most of the time for me I manually set the ISO. I really only like to let the camera have control of one aspect of the exposure -- usually the shutter speed unless I am trying to do something special with an action shot and then I switch to TV or M. It also seems like you could go higher than ISO 400 without much worry on the 550D probably at least 800 or even 1600.
Click to expand...
Which is a great reason to use auto iso in Manual mode (where I think auto iso is at it's best).You then set both shutter speed and aperture as you wish.The iso changes to allow proper metering.This camera is so good at high iso that I use auto-iso at 800-1600 often.

Admittedly this is not a great technique for a beginner.But for anyone that typically likes control over aperture and shutter speed,it's wonderful. Canon now needs allow this with flash.

Fred
 
aVolanche said:
Which is a great reason to use auto iso in Manual mode (where I think auto iso is at it's best).You then set both shutter speed and aperture as you wish.The iso changes to allow proper metering.This camera is so good at high iso that I use auto-iso at 800-1600 often.

Admittedly this is not a great technique for a beginner.But for anyone that typically likes control over aperture and shutter speed,it's wonderful. Canon now needs allow this with flash.

Fred
Click to expand...
This is a great technique Fred, I've finally gotten around to testing it and I think I am going to love it. Thanks for the comment you may have changed the way I use my canera -- at least for a little while.
 
I set my 550 to ISO 200 minimum to avoid blown highlights. A couple of years ago this was a real problem to me on previous cameras, and I learned that it is more likely to ba an issue at ISO 100 (and most current cameras limit ISO to 200+ in highlight protection mode).

I'd also strongly suggest using RAW - which gives more flexible files and the opportunity to quickly fine tune (WB, exposure, noise control, etc) post capture. Be aware that the files (JPEG or RAW) are LARGE!
--
Best regards
Vince C
 
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