Beginners questions please

[ivans75]

Hi guys

i am a photgrqphy beginner. I have a canon 80d with ef s 10-22mm 3.5/4.5 wide angle lens and 50 mm f1.4 lens.

i ve been getting some photography resources (tutorials) online before i found this website and my cousin who loaned me the 10-22 lens also gave me a bit of advise in regards to the light and composition trilogy, however there re still many things i dont get

For example if i use av mode and shoot the same scenery (landscape) i get better pics but when i do the same scenery with manual copying the same setting, the image somewhat looks different.

Another question is, if i use auto iso, the camera tends to choose a much higher iso setting
And i ve been told to use the lowest possible and compensate the exposure with either shutter speed or apperture depending on the occasion. Do you guys leave iso on auto or adjust accordingly with situation? Do you adjust iso last after deciding what apperture?

Also, what is the best way to take picture against sun light ? I am aiming for some dramatic view especially in the golden hours period :)

i have many more questions in my head but id take one baby step at a time :D

much appreciated once again

[ameerat42]

A preliminary reply:
1. Some more detail about "somewhat different" would be helpful, perhaps two such pics as you describe.
But, I would say that in Av mode there is some further automation that you may not be aware of and so cannot
set in manual mode. This may possibly be due to Auto WB settings. It also depends on whether the scene changes
significantly in the interval between shots.

2. I am uncertain of what you mean here: "Another question is, if i use auto iso, the camera tends to choose a much higher iso setting..."
About using the lowest possible ISO setting, that is a general rule to try to avoid introducing too much signal noise into the image.
Ie, higher ISO usually > higher noise. If you need high ISO, just use it. There is no fast rule about using auto ISO and I would say that
nobody here adheres to any such.
Rather than giving you a long reply, have a look at the idea of The Exposure Triangle (http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showlibrary.php?title=New_To_Photography:The_Exposure_Triangle_-_Shutter_Speed_Aperture_ISO_Sensitivity) in this Library article. Look at the other topics there as well.

3. For shooting "against the light", there are two main ideas I can recall.
One is to "back-light" you subject, such as sunlight shining through green grass. This would be close to a "fairly normal" exposure,
and you'd likely notice some contrast difference compared to a "front-lit" shot of the same scene.

The other is to produce a silhouette, where the subject is in deep shadow and the background and rest of the picture is "more normal".
For this, you'd use an exposure for the non-silhouetted subject area and let the subject go dark.

So, that's preliminary, and the best way is to try some shots yourself (mainly in manual mode) and post them here for discussion.

Bon chance!

[Tannin]

G'day MDJ.

Lots to answer there, but let's make a start.

There are many different ways to organise your exposure settings. Ask any three photographers and you will get five different answers.

I suggest that you pick a method to start with and stick to it for the time being until you are fully familiar with it, then perhaps consider other methods. The most popular method is aperture priority, and I reckon that is a good choice.

Set your ISO to 200 and leave it there unless you are battling to get a decent shutter speed. The quality difference between 100 ISO and 200 is tiny. If you can pick it with the naked eye, I'll eat my boots. The difference between 200 and 400 is small but certainly visible. 800 ISO is clearly inferior, even on modern cameras like your 80D. So set it to 200 ISO unless your shutter speed falls below about 1/60th (using the 10-22), or 1/100th (using the 50mm). The longer the lens, the higher the shutter speed needs to be to get sharp pictures. Go to 400 if you are a bit worried about getting sharp results, 800 if you need to, 1600 if desperate. 200 is good for 90% of all shots at your focal lengths.

Set your aperture to something middling. f/8 is almost always good. If you need more, a decent rule of thumb is to stay one stop higher than the best (lowest number) your lens can offer, but break that as needed. Try not to go past f/16.

Wide-angle lenses are hard to learn on, for two reasons.

(i) Composition is more difficult. It is often hard to find a wide-angle scene with an interesting foreground, and objects further back tend to look very small. Don't let that worry you, just work away and you'll be fine. (You will get great advice here.)
(ii) Exposure tends to be tricky. You tend to get big areas of bright (usually sky) and dark and finding a happy medium exposure value can be a challenge.

Wide-angle lenses are also tremendous fun, so jump on in anyway.

In general, set your camera to Av mode, f/8, ISO 200, and let it decide the shutter speed. Take the shot. Look at it. (The histogram is a great help - if you don't know what that is or how to use it, sing out and someone will explain.) If it's perfect. stop there.

If not - let's say it's too dark - you need to tell the camera to make it's best guess (same as before) but add a bit more on top of that. This is called exposure compensation and you add it with the back dial on an 80D. (Half-press the shutter to wake up the system, then rotate.) Try a third of a stop. Still too dark? add a bit more until it's right.

Don't forget to set the exposure compensation back to zero when you have finished with that scene. Otherwise you forget and mess up other scenes. It is a good habit to always set the camera back to your standard settings when you finish doing something. That way, you are always starting from a known point.

Pictures against the light? Maybe best to hang fire on that for a little while. I reckon you have enough to do learning to work with the light even or behind you first. Crawl, walk, then run.

Let us know how you are going and post the results. The community here is amazingly helpful.

[Cris]

^. I have to agree with Tannin. Really well done.

[ivans75]

A preliminary reply:
1. Some more detail about "somewhat different" would be helpful, perhaps two such pics as you describe.
But, I would say that in Av mode there is some further automation that you may not be aware of and so cannot
set in manual mode. This may possibly be due to Auto WB settings. It also depends on whether the scene changes
significantly in the interval between shots.

2. I am uncertain of what you mean here: "Another question is, if i use auto iso, the camera tends to choose a much higher iso setting..."
About using the lowest possible ISO setting, that is a general rule to try to avoid introducing too much signal noise into the image.
Ie, higher ISO usually > higher noise. If you need high ISO, just use it. There is no fast rule about using auto ISO and I would say that
nobody here adheres to any such.
Rather than giving you a long reply, have a look at the idea of The Exposure Triangle (http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showlibrary.php?title=New_To_Photography:The_Exposure_Triangle_-_Shutter_Speed_Aperture_ISO_Sensitivity) in this Library article. Look at the other topics there as well.

3. For shooting "against the light", there are two main ideas I can recall.
One is to "back-light" you subject, such as sunlight shining through green grass. This would be close to a "fairly normal" exposure,
and you'd likely notice some contrast difference compared to a "front-lit" shot of the same scene.

The other is to produce a silhouette, where the subject is in deep shadow and the background and rest of the picture is "more normal".
For this, you'd use an exposure for the non-silhouetted subject area and let the subject go dark.

So, that's preliminary, and the best way is to try some shots yourself (mainly in manual mode) and post them here for discussion.

Bon chance!

Thanks so much, sorry, I meant by "somewhat different" is more to the better side. So if i use AV the pic looks better than manual mode although I copy all the settings.
About the Auto ISO, my camera has an auto iso setting so the camera choose the best iso so I only need to worry about the speed and apperture.
And about "against the light", it is just my curiousity, it might not my time yet to learn all that so as someone else posted here, i think he is right, i think it is for me to learn more about the basics than worry about more advance.tricks. Those silhouette photos are amazing. Wish i could do it one day.

[Mark L]

...Those silhouette photos are amazing. Wish i could do it one day.

and you will eventually.:th3:

Print out what Tony has written about and read it again know and then as you learn.
I'm into birds and my 80D is permanently step at ISO 800 as a starting point to keep the shutter speed up at 600mm. You don't have to worry about 600mm so shutter speed is a much lesser problem for you.
mmm, did i say read what Tony has written above.:) Get rid of auto ISO and manual settings as you start this photographic journey. No don't need to complicate things. That can come later.:)

[ivans75]

and you will eventually.:th3:

Print out what Tony has written about and read it again know and then as you learn.
I'm into birds and my 80D is permanently step at ISO 800 as a starting point to keep the shutter speed up at 600mm. You don't have to worry about 600mm so shutter speed is a much lesser problem for you.
mmm, did i say read what Tony has written above.:) Get rid of auto ISO and manual settings as you start this photographic journey. No don't need to complicate things. That can come later.:)

yup i already did print it last night :D