How-to(s)...G2

[Satish]

I am wondering if anyone has a good writeup or even a book out on how to take good digital pictures geared toward G1/G2. I find myself using the AUTO mode the most, but would like to learn how to use more of the manual functions and RAW. I tried using the P mode in Raw and most of my pictures look blurry, I dont think I am shaking my hand that much..no idea.

Here are some samples of RAW pictures I found at pbase:
http://www.pbase.com/robanddeanna/europe_2001

This love how amazingly sharp these pictures are, any suggestions on how to take pictures like that?

Thanks

 

[Mike K]

Amazing, Dennis Curtin already has a G-2 book for sale:
http://www.shortcourses.com/bookstore/canon/book_canong2.htm

I will assume that much of it is like the G-1 shortcourse book. It is a good book for beginners as it relates photogaphic principles to the operation of the various camera controls. After all isn't one of the reasons you got a G-2 was all of those neat manual controls? It is a waste of time for advanced photographers. Do a search at the top of this forum for "G-1 shourtcourse" to see several other threads and comments on the shortcourse series of books.

Other than that, read this forum a lot and learn how to post some pics to get feedback and suggestions. My suggestion is don't use Auto mode, use P and if your shutter drops below 1/60 sec turn on the flash. Try using a tripod or carefully bracing it and see it that helps. If it does, camera shake is your problem. If not, focus is the likely problem. RAW or JPEG won't make a difference on blurryness, just keep the sharpening to normal until you can master the picture taking.
Regards, Mike K

I am wondering if anyone has a good writeup or even a book out on
how to take good digital pictures geared toward G1/G2. I find
myself using the AUTO mode the most, but would like to learn how to
use more of the manual functions and RAW. I tried using the P mode
in Raw and most of my pictures look blurry, I dont think I am
shaking my hand that much..no idea.

Here are some samples of RAW pictures I found at pbase:
http://www.pbase.com/robanddeanna/europe_2001
This love how amazingly sharp these pictures are, any suggestions
on how to take pictures like that?

Thanks

 

[BeanCounter]

Satish,

1. 1 - Your images should be no more blurred in other modes than in "Auto"

Try using the "P" mode on the cam for awhile, you'll begin to like this mode a lot more than "auto".

TIP: if you use "P" on your dial, - you can make 100% sure that ALL images you take are at 50 ISO - something you should gear towards. In Auto mode, your fotos can be either at 50 or 100 ISO depending on the light that is available at the time.

Using "P" will not -- NOT make images more blurry than shooting in "Auto" mode.... if you are getting blurry images, then you are moving the camera too much while taking the image, or moving the camera too soon after clicking the picture.

anyway, experiment, experiment experiment. - If you are in doubt, put the camera on a tripod, and then try the above. In any case, I like "P" mode, and if I am shooting images where I want the background to be really out of focus, then I use the AV mode, and open up the F-Stop to 2.0 -

anyway, I think others will give you suggestions, so I don't want to get to techical for nothing.

Mark

I am wondering if anyone has a good writeup or even a book out on
how to take good digital pictures geared toward G1/G2. I find
myself using the AUTO mode the most, but would like to learn how to
use more of the manual functions and RAW. I tried using the P mode
in Raw and most of my pictures look blurry, I dont think I am
shaking my hand that much..no idea.

Here are some samples of RAW pictures I found at pbase:
http://www.pbase.com/robanddeanna/europe_2001
This love how amazingly sharp these pictures are, any suggestions
on how to take pictures like that?

Thanks

 

[Martin Eager56124]

I am wondering if anyone has a good writeup or even a book out on
how to take good digital pictures geared toward G1/G2. I find
myself using the AUTO mode the most, but would like to learn how to
use more of the manual functions and RAW. I tried using the P mode
in Raw and most of my pictures look blurry, I dont think I am
shaking my hand that much..no idea.

What shutter speed did the camera take these pictures at in Auto mode (you can find out by examing the picture info in Zoombrowser)? If there wasn't a lot of available light and flash wasn't used, you may have had a slow shutter speed, which means hand-holding will cause a little bit of camera shake and blur. Unless you have very steady hands, anything below about 1/50 handheld is liable to blur.

As for learning about how to use the manual functions, break yourself into it gently. As others have suggest, start using "P" mode first - it's pretty much fully automatic, but allows you to control a few more things such as ISO. The camera still chooses the most appropriate shutter speed and aperture though - usually it will guess right, but not always. Which is where aperture priority and shutter priority modes come in. These are excellent mid points between full auto and full manual and probably where you want to end up taking most of your pictures. Full manual is hard work and only for the real camera geeks in my opinion - I use Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority most of the time, as I like to control depth of field and shutter speed. In Aperture Priority mode, you choose the aperture you need and the camera choses the shutter speed to match. In Shutter Priority the reverse occurs. Which you use depends on the circumstances and what sort of shot you are trying to take.

As for RAW, this won't make your pictures noticeably sharper than Superfine JPEG mode, but it will give you more control out of camera over white balance, sharpness, colour saturation etc. I usually shoot RAW for quality shots I know I will want to process in Photoshop later and shoot JPEG for 'snaps'.

Here are some samples of RAW pictures I found at pbase:
http://www.pbase.com/robanddeanna/europe_2001
This love how amazingly sharp these pictures are, any suggestions
on how to take pictures like that?

Those pictures are wonderful - I especially like the cathederal shots. But do we have any hard evidence these were definitely shot with a G1 or G2 (other than the comment made by a gallery visitor)? I would like to hope they are.

Martin

 

[Satish]

Thanks, I will try that. Mostly i get blurry images when i use P and RAW, otherwise everything looks nice. I need to play around with some of the other settings also. It looks like the flash is off by default also.

1. 1 - Your images should be no more blurred in other modes than in

"Auto"

Try using the "P" mode on the cam for awhile, you'll begin to like
this mode a lot more than "auto".

TIP: if you use "P" on your dial, - you can make 100% sure that ALL
images you take are at 50 ISO - something you should gear towards.
In Auto mode, your fotos can be either at 50 or 100 ISO depending
on the light that is available at the time.

Using "P" will not -- NOT make images more blurry than shooting in
"Auto" mode.... if you are getting blurry images, then you are
moving the camera too much while taking the image, or moving the
camera too soon after clicking the picture.

anyway, experiment, experiment experiment. - If you are in doubt,
put the camera on a tripod, and then try the above. In any case, I
like "P" mode, and if I am shooting images where I want the
background to be really out of focus, then I use the AV mode, and
open up the F-Stop to 2.0 -

anyway, I think others will give you suggestions, so I don't want
to get to techical for nothing.

Mark

I am wondering if anyone has a good writeup or even a book out on
how to take good digital pictures geared toward G1/G2. I find
myself using the AUTO mode the most, but would like to learn how to
use more of the manual functions and RAW. I tried using the P mode
in Raw and most of my pictures look blurry, I dont think I am
shaking my hand that much..no idea.

Here are some samples of RAW pictures I found at pbase:
http://www.pbase.com/robanddeanna/europe_2001
This love how amazingly sharp these pictures are, any suggestions
on how to take pictures like that?

Thanks

 

[BeanCounter]

I checked a few of the images, and the images have been modified in Photoshop, and there is no EXIF info on any of the images I looked at.

I didn't see any post of which camera supposedly took the images either.

so to echo your sentiment, no there is NO evidence what cam took them, and I also notice that sharpening seems to be used quite a bit.

Mark

Those pictures are wonderful - I especially like the cathederal
shots. But do we have any hard evidence these were definitely shot
with a G1 or G2 (other than the comment made by a gallery visitor)?
I would like to hope they are.

Martin

 

[Satish]

I actually read it from that same author's other gallery:
http://www.pbase.com/robanddeanna/sears_point

at the top he/she says it was taken with a G1.

I didn't see any post of which camera supposedly took the images
either.
so to echo your sentiment, no there is NO evidence what cam took
them, and I also notice that sharpening seems to be used quite a
bit.

Mark

Those pictures are wonderful - I especially like the cathederal
shots. But do we have any hard evidence these were definitely shot
with a G1 or G2 (other than the comment made by a gallery visitor)?
I would like to hope they are.

Martin

 

[KG50905]

I trust they are shot with G1 (you see those are washed with magenta!
and DOF, file name, sharpness, reds also support).

I am wondering if anyone has a good writeup or even a book out on
how to take good digital pictures geared toward G1/G2. I find
myself using the AUTO mode the most, but would like to learn how to
use more of the manual functions and RAW. I tried using the P mode
in Raw and most of my pictures look blurry, I dont think I am
shaking my hand that much..no idea.

What shutter speed did the camera take these pictures at in Auto
mode (you can find out by examing the picture info in Zoombrowser)?
If there wasn't a lot of available light and flash wasn't used, you
may have had a slow shutter speed, which means hand-holding will
cause a little bit of camera shake and blur. Unless you have very
steady hands, anything below about 1/50 handheld is liable to blur.

As for learning about how to use the manual functions, break
yourself into it gently. As others have suggest, start using "P"
mode first - it's pretty much fully automatic, but allows you to
control a few more things such as ISO. The camera still chooses the
most appropriate shutter speed and aperture though - usually it
will guess right, but not always. Which is where aperture priority
and shutter priority modes come in. These are excellent mid points
between full auto and full manual and probably where you want to
end up taking most of your pictures. Full manual is hard work and
only for the real camera geeks in my opinion - I use Aperture
Priority and Shutter Priority most of the time, as I like to
control depth of field and shutter speed. In Aperture Priority
mode, you choose the aperture you need and the camera choses the
shutter speed to match. In Shutter Priority the reverse occurs.
Which you use depends on the circumstances and what sort of shot
you are trying to take.

As for RAW, this won't make your pictures noticeably sharper than
Superfine JPEG mode, but it will give you more control out of
camera over white balance, sharpness, colour saturation etc. I
usually shoot RAW for quality shots I know I will want to process
in Photoshop later and shoot JPEG for 'snaps'.

Here are some samples of RAW pictures I found at pbase:
http://www.pbase.com/robanddeanna/europe_2001
This love how amazingly sharp these pictures are, any suggestions
on how to take pictures like that?

Those pictures are wonderful - I especially like the cathederal
shots. But do we have any hard evidence these were definitely shot
with a G1 or G2 (other than the comment made by a gallery visitor)?
I would like to hope they are.

Martin

 

[Rob S.]

Hi Mark,

I am the owner of the robanddeanna Pbase galleries. All shots were taken with the G1 in RAW mode, then converted to jpeg. You are correct, I did run all images through Photoshop before posting. Besides a 50% resizing, I adjusted levels and applied unsharp mask. I still have a lot to learn about post-processing, which would explain some of the less-than-optimal results (especially the over-sharpening).

Thanks,

Rob S.

I didn't see any post of which camera supposedly took the images
either.
so to echo your sentiment, no there is NO evidence what cam took
them, and I also notice that sharpening seems to be used quite a
bit.

Mark

Those pictures are wonderful - I especially like the cathederal
shots. But do we have any hard evidence these were definitely shot
with a G1 or G2 (other than the comment made by a gallery visitor)?
I would like to hope they are.

Martin

 

[BryanS]

at the top he/she says it was taken with a G1.

Actually, it's easier than that to see that they were taken with a G1. In all the shots with backlighting, there's substantial CA (purple fringing). For those of us who have had the G1 (and now the G2) we know it well.

And now, in the cases we still see it, the fringing is blue.

Bryan

 

[Martin Eager56124]

Hi Mark,

I am the owner of the robanddeanna Pbase galleries. All shots were
taken with the G1 in RAW mode, then converted to jpeg. You are
correct, I did run all images through Photoshop before posting.
Besides a 50% resizing, I adjusted levels and applied unsharp mask.
I still have a lot to learn about post-processing, which would
explain some of the less-than-optimal results (especially the
over-sharpening).

Don't do yourself down. Those are excellent galleries you have. The vacation shots are very well composed and there's some excellent panning in the car racing shots. Looks like you did a good job on the post-processing to me.

Cheers
Martin

 

[Rob S.]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the kind words. I've experienced a true rebirth of my interest in photography since going digital. The ability to experiment without worry of wasting roll after roll of film has proven invaluable in improving my photography. I'm not yet where I would like to be, but I'm having a lot of fun getting there!

Take care,

Rob S.

Don't do yourself down. Those are excellent galleries you have. The
vacation shots are very well composed and there's some excellent
panning in the car racing shots. Looks like you did a good job on
the post-processing to me.

Cheers
Martin