Jumped to SLR too soon?

[chriswood_7]

Hi guys,

As discussed in my previous posts, ive got an EOS400D, which in general I use to take pics at motorsports events. I have been taking pictures for about 4 years with other digital camera's and decided that I would move upto an SLR as I outgrew my Konica Minolta DiMage.

However, I have now found that I dont think I am actually ready for SLR. Im struggling to get to grips with image sharpness and clarity with my more "creative" shots. I cant seem to get any sharp images at all. Im sure that its not the lenses that is letting me down, its probably just me. Once thing I have noticed is that I struggle to keep the camera still when I have my 300mm on which results in a zoomed image which is blurry (I believe camera shake reduction on normal point and shoots counteracts this?)

I am trying to get as much practice as I can in, but just as I think im getting somewhere I load the pictures up on my PC and they look terrible.

I really want to make this hobby work, but I cant help feeling that this investment has cost me a lot of money, and im worried that I dont have the right equipment, lenses etc. Which I cant afford right now

Any advice appreciated

[Funkstar]

What lenses are you using?

I felt the same when i was using the 18-55 kit lens that came with my 350D... it's really not a good lens at all. One thing thats good about it is its weight and size: small and light. Especially compared to my EF-S 17-85 IS that i use as my default lens these days.

At 300mm you really need to be using a trypod. Even for a fast shutter. I have a EF 75-300 IS lens as my alternative lens these days, replacing the 55-200 kit lens i had before. Again, the difference is amazing.

I can't justify spending money on L glass lenses, but the improvement you can get from moving away from the kit ones is huge.

Another thing to look at is shooting in RAW. You can do far more to the images once they are on your PC, there is also going to be far less detail lost in the JPEG compression that way.

[chriswood_7]

Hi there,

Im just using the standard 18-55mm kit and the 90-300mm lense I got as part of the kit. The whole lot cost me £600 (not my idea of cheap) and now to find that I need another few lenses to supercede these ones (with IS) makes me want to cry LOL I just wants expecting the standard kit to be so poor, i was expecting crisp sharp vivid images, and instead im getting something "marginally" better than my Dimage

My next venture would be a tripod/monopod and some cleaning gear.

I will try RAW over the next few days, see what I can do. What sort of lenses whould I be aiming for?

[Bobster]

when @ 300mm u should be shooting 1/300+ for a clear shot - its a little different when panning, cos you're moving

[jamena]

Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to all the manual control and focusing through a viewfinder (I always struggled to get comfortable with that when I've used SLRs). I think the SLR holds two main things over a compact - far larger (and therefore both less noisy and capable of far greater dynamic range) pixels and far more control over the settings. RAW will let you post-process the dynamic range etc more how you want it rather than how the in-camera processing thinks you should get it. More work of course

Lenses are a whole other factor and can enhance the SLR but I'd have thought the kit lens would manage just fine ... having said that dpreview didn't rate it much by the sound of it (though I'm sure that compared to a compact the kit lens should still be pretty good!)

[BUFF]

DSLRs do far less in camera processing than a p&s so they do look softer until you post process.

[Nick F]

I don't find my 18-55mm lens much use to be honest. When using my Sigma telephoto lens I always get some kind of distorted unless I use a tripod when it's set a 300m.

I think you should try and locate yourself a mid-range lens that will hopefully be good enough for short to long range pictures whilst still giving you adequate control over focus etc.

[tfboy]

Also, with a P&S you'll never get anywhere near 300 focal distance. And, with the crop of the dslr sensor, it's more like a 400mm 35mm / full frame equivalent.

As Bobster said, you need to be shooting at 1/200th or faster to reduce any camera shake. Although, to get that at 300mm lens, you need a very bright day and a decent-ish lens.

My experience with "cheap" 300mm lenses are not that brilliant. I've had a few good shots from motorsports, but they're mostly because it was incredibly bright which allowed me to shoot at 1/200th and still get enough light. And even then, the problem you then get with "soft" pictures is not so much any shake, but just the fact that a "budget" telephoto will have its limits.

It's far too easy to hope that once you have any old 300mm lens, you're going to get photos of similar quality to pros. However, even putting aside the experience pros have, they're not using a budget telephoto zoom lens either

I've jumped from a £100 ("cheap") Nikor 70-300 f/4-5.6 G lens to a Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 constant. Costs a fortune, weighs a metric ton, but any poor photos now I can put down to poor camera technique

[Funkstar]

It's far too easy to hope that once you have any old 300mm lens, you're going to get photos of similar quality to pros. However, even putting aside the experience pros have, they're not using a budget telephoto zoom lens either

Exactly. See those huge white lenses the pros have at football matches etc.? They are Canon 'L' lenses. Very nice, veeeeery expensive.

I made a similar mistake to you when i started. I bought a 350D kit including an 18-55, 55-200 and a hand grip/battery pack. Really i should have just bought the body and a middle of the range Sigma/Tamron lens to start playing with.

I'd guess there are thousands of people out there that have similar stories.

[vipernet]

Unfortunately photography is an expensive game, it's well worth the effort and attention though so stick at it.

I use a sigma 300mm on my d70 for knockhill. I'll see if I can dig out any pictures I've taken and post them up.

As for the raw file format, I changed from shooting in jpeg to raw 6 months after I got the d70 and have never looked back. Couple with lightroom and cs2 raw has really helped me in editing photos and understanding exposure a bit more.

[Hans Voralberg]

Yeah it's a very expensive game, so save up, go to Hongkong and buy loads, I own 2 L lens and frankly, I have seen better ones.

There's load of reason why your picture is not as sharp as you want:

- Not use to handholding SLR. Have a look at this
http://www.nikonians.org/html/resour...dholding1.html Breathing properly help a lot.

- Arms/Hands not strong enuf (believe me, i have to do push ups daily and go to gyms just to improve my handling, now i can shoot handheld with my 70-200 acceptably sharp @ 1/30s, which is frigging tough)

- Not enough use/practice. Weak techniques (took me nearly a year b4 my pics is anywhere as sharp as I want it to be)

-Not good enuf lens, not sure if this is the cause. But the blurryness of lens quality and shake are quite diffenrent, give us picture so we can tell

Hope i wont dissapoint you too much but the 18-55 is a very weak lens, may be even worse than some high-end compact. Never use the 90-300, but having USM meaning it's probably not in the same league as the 18-55, well my guess any way. Having said that I've seen very good picture taken with those lens, so just go out and shoot more, if 1 year down the road you cant improve then think about improving gear.

[chriswood_7]

Hope i wont dissapoint you too much but the 18-55 is a very weak lens, may be even worse than some high-end compact. Never use the 90-300, but having USM meaning it's probably not in the same league as the 18-55, well my guess any way. Having said that I've seen very good picture taken with those lens, so just go out and shoot more, if 1 year down the road you cant improve then think about improving gear.

Hi again,

Thanks for the advice everyone. I agree with a lot of what everyone says. I think most of it is down to technique, and also being so used to point and shoot where pretty much everything is done for you while your taking your shot. Im currently using the 18-55mm kit and the 90-300mm kit (both non USM) that I got with the camera. From my point of view the camera was extremely expensive (400D body, 18-55mm, 90-300mm and carry case for £610 + canon cashback) so I think i was expecting the world. What I think I will do is get some good practice over the next year or so, and see how I fair with the lenses I have. If theyre no good ill just sell them and buy a few better ones.

However, my next investment is tripod, 4GB CF (for RAW), monopod and some cleaning stuff. Is there anything else that you guys could recommend me?

Thanks again for all the advice,

[Funkstar]

For the CF card, don't get a cheap un-branded one. they are usually deathly slow. I got a 1GB Sandisk Extreme III when i first got my 350D, it's nice and quick. Also got a Viking 4GB card - rubbish. Now got a 4GB Extreme IV in the post the other day. Proba bly won't be any quicker than an Extreme III or even an Ultra II in the camera, but being UDMA i can use it in a PCMCIA adapter and it will be fast at downloading the photos.

[chriswood_7]

For the CF card, don't get a cheap un-branded one. they are usually deathly slow. I got a 1GB Sandisk Extreme III when i first got my 350D, it's nice and quick. Also got a Viking 4GB card - rubbish. Now got a 4GB Extreme IV in the post the other day. Proba bly won't be any quicker than an Extreme III or even an Ultra II in the camera, but being UDMA i can use it in a PCMCIA adapter and it will be fast at downloading the photos.

Cheers

I use a 12MB/s one now, Lexar I think it is. I was planning on going to play.com and getting one of the SanDisk ones

[Funkstar]

have a look at http://www.7dayshop.com/ as well.

Just stay away from eBay, a lot of them are fakes (i also don't like paypal anymore)

[chriswood_7]

Thanks for the links,

Play.com seem to be pretty reasonable prices. Think its gonna be 4GB if im going RAW?

Cheers