Newbie With SLR at Culzean, Scotland (Pic Heavy)

[Jinsin456]

I've finally went and bought myself a DSLR camera . I don't claim to be any good at this but I think for really my first time on full manual mode I done not too bad, getting to grips with the settings but I've been told by everyone so far it's a case of trial and error hence why there are a couple double shots with different settings.

If anyone has any tips or comments they would be greatly appreciated.

Camera is a Canon 600D with 18-55mm lens by the way

 

[crosslandkelly]

Some nice pics there. Cheers.

 

[scottishpinz]

Great pics as combination of artificial light and night time makes correct exposure really hard. I would say why go full manual when you can use AV or TV mode and let the camera's built in exposure help out. You can then always dial in a bit of compensation. When I first got my digital SLR I worked through the instruction manual trying each control, but even now I don't use or remember them all! I have gallery of some pics here www.flickr.com/photos/85306730@N00/

 

[brancho]

Not too bad considering the challenge you set yourself.

As has been said Av and TV are what you should try first.
Use AV for situations where you want to control depth of field and teh shutter speed is not important but keep an eye on it
TV where you need set shutter speeds and let camera choose an apperture but again you may need to adjust teh ISO or use auto ISO to get what you want.

Digital camera magazine has a great article on teh subject last month (january issue).

 

[marcglasgow]

nice pics.
am thinking of getting a dslr but still not got a clue on them
my g/f gave me her old nikon slr f75 to play with just now to see if i can get used to a camera

scottish pinz love the gallery

 

[Elines]

I've started with a compact - Panasonic TZ30 - and am finding plenty of controls to get the hang of with that.

In terms of improving your photography my top tip would be to join a class or club of some kind - I have done this and get lots of ideas from others. I notice that many people in the class who have a DSLR do not know how to use them so you - as a new owner - are not alone and needn't be worried tht everyone else will be an 'expert'.

 

[troutman]

Not bad, any tips would be check the histogram and check it again- you would surprised how many people don't. It will let you dial in some negative or positive compensation depending on the exposure. Out of interest what was the ISO and white balance in the bottom photo? BTW well done on the 4th pic down, you haven't made the artificial light too overpowering!

Finally another quick tip, the person using the Lumix- cradle the bottom of the lens with one hand and grip the camera body with the other- just noticed it, really helps stabilise the camera

 

[Jinsin456]

Not bad, any tips would be check the histogram and check it again- you would surprised how many people don't. It will let you dial in some negative or positive compensation depending on the exposure. Out of interest what was the ISO and white balance in the bottom photo? BTW well done on the 4th pic down, you haven't made the artificial light too overpowering!Finally another quick tip, the person using the Lumix- cradle the bottom of the lens with one hand and grip the camera body with the other- just noticed it, really helps stabilise the camera

Thanks for the tips ill definitely give that a try with the histogram. I honestly can't remember the settings on the camera for the 4th pic down, I think it was possibly ISO 400 with about a 15 second shutter time.

 

[Squidders]

Grab a freeware exif viewer to see what your settings were if it was a jpg. Lightroom, photoshop or gimp will tell you from raw images easily enough.

 

[troutman]

Grab a freeware exif viewer to see what your settings were if it was a jpg. Lightroom, photoshop or gimp will tell you from raw images easily enough.

Squidders is right about image processing. Shooting in RAW will preserve lost highlights and shadows so that you can recover them!