My head is still spinning

[jac-in-a-box]

Following on from this thread:

www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=357436&f=109&h=0

I blew the budget and sorted out my lens quandry. Went for the Canon 24-105 IS and Sigma 10-22 as wider lens choice...threw in a couple of Hoya Pro digi filters - CPL and UV. Shouldn't forget the battery grip and a couple of batteries as well.

Can't help but wonder if I've been a little ambitious for my first serious foray into the world of DSLR photography - but no regrets and I'm determined to get my head around it all!

RAW - never used this before. Cannon supply DPP software - is it any good? I know the easiest answer is to have a go. Seems everyones favoured choice is Photoshop, but what a price! Is there any alternative that's worth buying at a more realistic price?
I've got Elements 2 but I'm not sure if that will support the RAW from a 30D? If not, would Elements 5 do the trick?

CPL's - how do I know when I've got the polarising effect properly set? The filter has a white painted marker on one of the sections but nothing to align it with...or, as is more likely am I missing something fundamental?
With it fitted to the lens I can't see any difference through the viewfinder when I turn the rotating part.

Jumped in at the deep end I think

Advice appreciated!

[Major Bloodnok]

Elements 5 should read the raw file, but you might also want to consider Paint Shop Pro XI.
I've been a PSP user for some time now and I rather like it. I bought Elements 5 yesterday as an alternative (because I've just got my gratis copy of Lightroom and Elements understands the new colour space that Adobe have introduced). Unfortunately, Elements lacks a few things that I use regularly in PSP - channel splitting, layer grouping and so forth. It looks like my workflow now is going to be Lightroom - Elements (16 bit, PhotoRGB) - PSP (8 bit, AdobeRGB for sharpening).

[RobDickinson]

jac-in-a-box said:

CPL's - how do I know when I've got the polarising effect properly set? The filter has a white painted marker on one of the sections but nothing to align it with...or, as is more likely am I missing something fundamental?
With it fitted to the lens I can't see any difference through the viewfinder when I turn the rotating part.

Jumped in at the deep end I think

Advice appreciated!

Understand what its doing, removing polarised light thats reflected of surfaces.

How to set it depends on whee the sun is (or lightsource) and what yoru pointing it at! If you turn it all the way round and it does nothign then its going to do nothing... Sometimes the effect is dramatic.

[_dobbo_]

As per above, Cpol might not always show an obvious effect.

Go outside and point it at your car, spin the filter around and watch the windows, you'll get the idea pretty quickly.

[V6GTO]

Or point it at a blue sky, when you turn the ring it will go darker/lighter, you can get some very dramatic dark blue skys that way.

Martin.