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First 'real' photos with my Canon 50D

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dannybgoode

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Hi All

In the summer I bought a Canon for my sister's wedding. Unfortunately it was a last minute internet purchase and it only turned up the night before so I had no chance to have a play and get used to it. As a result i wasn't happy with the majority of photos (although there was the odd good 'un - more luck than judgement).

Consequently I went out and bought the Canon 50D (Expanded Guides) book, re-read Bryan Petersons 'Understanding Exposure', invested in DxO Optics Pro & FilmPack and Elements 9.

I prefer to learn software by just playing around and seeing what effect the various options do so had a good tool around with the software on any old image to see if I could improve it.

So, 50D now set up to my liking, exposure techniques revised and image processing skills vaguely polished has led to the follow photos. Comments, feedback, suggestions, criticisms all gratefully received:











Thanks all and have a great new year.

Danny B
 
I really like pictures #2 and #3. Nice effect with the lighting and branches.

Picture #1 seems like it not totally level. It might be the scene isn't level.
--
Randy
 
Thanks for the feedback. #1 has been heavily processed - too much perhaps?

Below is the original:



Cheers

Danny B
 
I like 2, 4 and 5. If 2 was bigger I could use it as a desktop wallpaper :)
--
Seeing the East Coast with a different EYE...
 
dannybgoode said:
Click to expand...
So, to start, I like the way this has been processed, especially after looking at the original. However the composition bothers me a little bit, but only slightly (and that's if I'm being picky) I think it would have been a better shot if you had turned your camera into portrait position, zoomed in a little, and then took the shot. Right now there's a lot of unnecessarily empty space. The right 1/3 is a little drab and boring.
dannybgoode said:
Click to expand...
I like this shot quite a bit with the composition and everything. I just can't help but wonder what it would look like as a high-contrast B&W conversion. You might want to try it out.
dannybgoode said:
Click to expand...
This is a nice shot, but if you look at the snow, you'll see the WB is slightly off with a blue tinge.
dannybgoode said:
Click to expand...
Same WB issue here, though more pronounced as there is much more snow in the image.
dannybgoode said:
Click to expand...
Now the WB looks right, but the image looks underexposed, so you might want to try and fix that part.

Have a Happy New Year yourself =)

--
A Beginning Amateur Photographer
 
Thanks Hobbies

I'll take a look at your suggestions, particulary the WB issues. The valley scene was tough as the area of pale cloud was actually quite blown as the sun was breaking through (oh how i wish I had some ND grads!) so I did an exclusion layer in Elements and the toned down the opacity until the exposure here was right.

Re: #1 I did a portrait version of this shot but I was trying to get across the desolation of the scene and the composition was too tight to do this portrait. Maybe a bit of a crop instead?

Re: #2 I did a B&W version and felt the colour version was stronger. Also, I love B&W and tend to process all my images into B&W so wanted to challange myself to work in colour.

Cheers

Danny B
 
I really like the colours on the first one, in the area near the sun... And the second and third ones... Aren't they a little too sharp though? It's not a criticism, and the photos look great, if a little unnatural... Or it might just be me!
 
photosen said:
I really like the colours on the first one, in the area near the sun... And the second and third ones... Aren't they a little too sharp though? It's not a criticism, and the photos look great, if a little unnatural... Or it might just be me!
Click to expand...
I was just going to say the same thing, Id back off contrast just a hair, but that's photography everyone has diffrent taste.... awsome shots though.. is the exif there? what Lens???
 
freediver01 said:
I was just going to say the same thing, Id back off contrast just a hair, but that's photography everyone has diffrent taste.... awsome shots though.. is the exif there? what Lens???
Click to expand...
Hi there

The exif data has gone awol I'm afraid. Lens is just the humble 18-55mm IS.

Can't afford better glass at the moment so have to make do!

Cheers

Danny B
 
The subject taste on all is very nice. I'm not familiar with all of the products you mention but for some initial post processing I suggest you install the copy of DPPV which is a RAW editor, then upgrade it to version 3.92 or better from the product support page on the Canon site. You will need to upgrade the EOS Utility and maybe the codec as well per the upgrade release notes.

Per the other comments in DPP you can achieve some of those results by working in the RAW palette tab using shadow, contrast, brightness, highlight and other sliders. For example you can adjust the highlight area to recover highlights that might be blown out in a straight jpg import. The dynamic range of RAW is greater than the export of a .jpg or tif conversion. When you are satisfied with the results export it into a non-lossy tif format for editing in PS. Always save a copy of the RAW file somewhere so you can retrieve the original and modify the 'recipe' since the RAW pixel data is usually not modified.

The unsharp mask function in DPPV 3.92 and later might come in handy for eliminating noise while enhancing apparent sharpness in high ISO low contrast situations.

There is no need to have the camera store .jpg files generally if you store RAW on the card. The CR2 RAW format already includes some non-lossy compression.

You've got a nice 'eye' for photography.

--
Ron Ginsberg
Minneapolis, MN
Land of 10,000 Puddles
 
ronzie said:
The subject taste on all is very nice. I'm not familiar with all of the products you mention but for some initial post processing I suggest you install the copy of DPPV which is a RAW editor, then upgrade it to version 3.92 or better from the product support page on the Canon site. You will need to upgrade the EOS Utility and maybe the codec as well per the upgrade release notes.

Per the other comments in DPP you can achieve some of those results by working in the RAW palette tab using shadow, contrast, brightness, highlight and other sliders. For example you can adjust the highlight area to recover highlights that might be blown out in a straight jpg import. The dynamic range of RAW is greater than the export of a .jpg or tif conversion. When you are satisfied with the results export it into a non-lossy tif format for editing in PS. Always save a copy of the RAW file somewhere so you can retrieve the original and modify the 'recipe' since the RAW pixel data is usually not modified.

The unsharp mask function in DPPV 3.92 and later might come in handy for eliminating noise while enhancing apparent sharpness in high ISO low contrast situations.

There is no need to have the camera store .jpg files generally if you store RAW on the card. The CR2 RAW format already includes some non-lossy compression.

You've got a nice 'eye' for photography.

--
Ron Ginsberg
Minneapolis, MN
Land of 10,000 Puddles
Click to expand...
Thanks Ron

I only ever shoot in rawgatheri. DxO is a raw processor - I tried DPP but prefer the versitlity of Optics Pro. FlimPack has algorithms to convert a file to 'mimic' various 35mm film styles - particularly useful to convert to B&W as it has all the Ilford films which I used when I had a film SLR.

I then use Elements 9 for final touching up and converting the TIFF Optics Pro gives me to JPEG.

Glad you think I have the 'eye.

Cheers

Danny B
 
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