Tell us about your camera and how you use it. What’s the one thing you like the most about your camera? Are you using a cameraphone? They are great for shooting when you come across an unexpected spectacular moment. Some of the excellent moments have been captured on cameraphones. Or are you using a DSLR?
If you are still making up your mind to buy one, you can check out the quick buying guide here. Tell us what you’d like to know more about your camera. We are coming up with some great posts for the camera owners so have your say before we start.
We have been covering a lot of basic and technical topics on the photography front in the last one month. We’d like to know you better and collect your suggestions. We want to make sure we know you and your camera so that the information is relevant, is usable and valuable. So what are you waiting for? Come on say something :)
I just ordered a Canon XS Rebel. I am so excited to use it! In Christmas of ’08, I bought my first digital camera- A Canon Powershot SD 1100 IS in pink (hey, I was only 10 at the time!) and I absolutely love Canon. I read up on the Rebel and it looks like a wonderful camera. I was looking for a Rebel that was on the low end, since I’m a kid and don’t want to invest in something that my brothers or I might break. So that looked like the perfect choice, and I am looking forward to receiving it in the mail. Could anyone give me any advice on how to use the 18-55mm lens? I’m new to the adjustable lens realm of photography, and any help or guidance on that topic would be appreciated. Thanks so much- This is a great website!
Pink, purple of pea green – who cares about the colour. You bought a camera, went out and used it. That is the important thing. Sometimes you will bump into camera snobs. These are the sort of people who look down upon you because you don’t have the fancy camera gear. I have seen fantastic images taken on very cheap and rough cameras. I have also seen rubbish pictures taken on camera worth thousand.
Adjustable lenses or zoom lenses are extremely useful things to use, but like everything in life, “There is no such thing as a free lunch”. Zooms are invariably a compromise of versatility vs. quality. The convenience of being able to change the focal length is balanced by a lack of image quality. Sure you can buy top of the line zoom lenses that give fantastic images – for fantastic $$.
An 18-55mm zoom will be very useful for landscape, architecture and a good all round general purpose lens. I believe due to the size of the CMOS sensor the camera has a lens multiplier of 1.6. This makes the zoom effectively a 28-88mm lenses.
A good guide for zoom is using the lens at the 18mm and the 55mm ends will produce the worst images. The best place to use a zoom lens is about the middle of the lenses focal range, which will be about 35mm for your lens. I am not saying don’t zoom in or out, just be aware that the best image quality is in the middle. If possible use the good old fashion manual zoom function and either walk closer or further away to the subject.
Like most lenses they also have an optimum point for their Aperture. Once again it is usually about the middle. For most lenses its around the f8 – f11 point. If you are not worried about the depth of field and the lighting is good try to stay close to f8 or f11.
You will hear some people tell you they can fix any image in Photoshop so don’t worry about things. Sure Photoshop can fix a lot of mistakes, but why not get your image as good as you can when you take it. Having Photoshop CS ‘whatever’ is no substitute for developing good photography skills and using them.
Suggestion – The first thing you should consider is put a filter on your lens. Either a “Daylight” or “UV” filter. These will have little effect on the images you shoot, BUT they will help protect the lens from dust and finger prints. They may also help save you lens from minor knocks. Better to replace a $30-$50 filter that became scratched than a $200-$500 lens. Try to avoid removing this filter if you can.
My last bit of advice is joining a camera/photography club if you have not already done so. You can learn a lot about photography here and they will encourage you to push your self in different directions and styles of photography.
Good luck and good shooting,
Paul