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miniman

Original Poster:

29,232 posts

285 months

Wednesday 28th December 2005
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This week I have been mostly... playing around with creative modes on my 350D. A couple I particularly like:





Others at www.binaryimage.net/albums/lacock

Any feedback welcomed!

miniman

Original Poster:

29,232 posts

285 months

Monday 9th January 2006
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Anyone?

GetCarter

30,726 posts

302 months

Monday 9th January 2006
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Sorry... missed this first time round.

Don't know Canon creative modes

Can't comment on the top one looks fine, possibly a focus issue - but that could easily be the resize for web.

The bottom one (I know the area btw - I bet you spend some time at Castle Combe!)... well it looks to me like the camera was focussed on the wall/window, not the sign. Apart from the obvious way of getting round this, a sneaky way to accentuate the sign is to put the camera into speed priority, and make it a very fast shutter speed. This will narrow the depth of field making the background soft... and making the sign sharp and stick out more. (That was about as techie as you get from me!)

Sorry if you knew this btw! One never knows where to pitch these 'comments' comments.

Steve



>> Edited by GetCarter on Monday 9th January 19:39

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

277 months

Monday 9th January 2006
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miniman - do you have all the focus points selected or just the central one?

If its a 'creative mode' option from the camera selects stuff itself side, rather than manual side, it probably adjusts what focus points etc it uses anyhow.

rude girl

6,937 posts

282 months

Monday 9th January 2006
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You can change the way the 350D selects the autofocus point - it's on p73 of the manual. I have mine set on a single point (the middle one), and do a half-press and move the camera to frame my pic.

GetCarter - if depth of field is critical to your composition, why not just do it with aperture priority instead of shutter priority? Do you get a different effect? (this is a genuine question not a smartarse one in case it reads that way, and it probably does, cos I'm knackered)

V6GTO

11,579 posts

265 months

Monday 9th January 2006
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rude girl said:
You can change the way the 350D selects the autofocus point - it's on p73 of the manual. I have mine set on a single point (the middle one), and do a half-press and move the camera to frame my pic.

GetCarter - if depth of field is critical to your composition, why not just do it with aperture priority instead of shutter priority? Do you get a different effect? (this is a genuine question not a smartarse one in case it reads that way, and it probably does, cos I'm knackered)


Hi rude girl You don't live up to your name

It doesn't matter which you choose to alter your exposure (shutter or apature priority) you'll end up with the same result (fast shutter=small apature...large apature=slow shutter) you just need to think about what is the most important element of the image you want to achieve and bias toward that...need to freeze action = high shutter speed...need large depth of field = small apature. Hope this makes sense...I'm sure a clever person can explain a lot better.

Martin.

rude girl

6,937 posts

282 months

Tuesday 10th January 2006
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Thanks Martin. That's what I've been doing. I'd have used aperture priority for these photos, I just wondered if there was another experiment I needed to add when I have my nerdy moments of taking 11 'identical' photos all with different settings!

ps I do live up to my name, but not in the 'ignorant' sense of the word Fortunately for everyone, my hockey-playing days are behind me now

GetCarter

30,726 posts

302 months

Tuesday 10th January 2006
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Re apature/speed. I only used the speed option, because for some reason people find this easy to remember.

miniman

Original Poster:

29,232 posts

285 months

Tuesday 10th January 2006
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Thanks for the feedback. I've got a lot to learn - I can't even see that either of those are out of focus

Will have to experiment further with the focus modes on the 350!

beano500

20,854 posts

298 months

Tuesday 10th January 2006
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GetCarter said:

The bottom one (I know the area btw - I bet you spend some time at Castle Combe!)... well it looks to me like the camera was focussed on the wall/window, not the sign. Apart from the obvious way of getting round this, a sneaky way to accentuate the sign is to put the camera into speed priority, and make it a very fast shutter speed. This will narrow the depth of field making the background soft... and making the sign sharp and stick out more. (That was about as techie as you get from me!)
I popped over and took this one to see if it would be better like this ....

Mrs Fish

30,018 posts

281 months

Wednesday 11th January 2006
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Nice photoshop work there

cirks

2,526 posts

306 months

Wednesday 11th January 2006
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beano500 said:
I popped over and took this one to see if it would be better like this ....

beano, being new to all this PS malarky, what is the best way to achieve the 'fake' DOF that you've done here. I assume a level of blur but when I've experimented I've failed to get something as 'true DOF' as your's looks. What %? Is it gaussian?

beano500

20,854 posts

298 months

Wednesday 11th January 2006
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Thanks for your kind words! Hope the photographer will forgive me for "playing"!

I merely added gaussian blur and adjusted the levels so that any highlights would not be intrusive. I did it entirely by view of teh screen image. i don't believe there is any "right" or "wrong" amount because the size of the image (number of pixels) is really the deciding factor.

(So if your image is 3000 x 2000 it's a bit different to a 400 x 600 proposition!)

PS, I ALWAYS play with levels, or curves, or colour balance, in a seperate layer, then adjustments can be easily made by opacity. Better still you can "paint through" an adjustment layer.

Also note that I did not apply ANY sharpening. Visually, it works with this subject, but if you want part of an image to look more sharp, it's often sensible to make other parts of it less sharp, this doesn't introduce the artificial look that the various sharpening methods usually offer.

johnfm

13,739 posts

273 months

Wednesday 11th January 2006
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FWIW, my comments concern framing. You seem to stick the subject slap in the middle of the frame. I would experiment a little with how you place the subject within the frame...

just my 2c