# First go with my new camera



## Jack R (Dec 15, 2014)

First proper go with my new canon EOS1300D :thumb:


----------



## nbray67 (Mar 22, 2012)

I know zilch about photography pal but what a lovely dog you have there.

Is it a GSD or Rotty x GSD by any chance?


----------



## Jack R (Dec 15, 2014)

Thanks bud, he’s called Bruno and he’s a rotty x gsd.


----------



## GSD (Feb 6, 2011)

Lovely pooch and excellent pics.


----------



## nbray67 (Mar 22, 2012)

He's obviously younger than our dear departed Bailey Dog but he so reminds me of him.

Here's our boy, sorely missed on a daily basis I must say.


----------



## Jack R (Dec 15, 2014)

He’s almost 18mths now, and just starting to settle down a bit now. Always sad when you lose them, we lost two last year. First was our GSD (Milo) who was only 13mths old and had various health issues and then shortly after that we lost Basil (collie x whippet) who was 17 yrs old.


----------



## slim_boy_fat (Jun 23, 2006)

You've chosen a really difficult subject for your first go with a new [and therefore, strange to you] camera. High contrast between the snow and the dog mean that the meter is averaging the scene and you lose details in your pet. What settings were you using, full auto exposure?

A play with 'levels' in Photoshop might improve things a bit.

Not to be taken as criticism, more an observation.


----------



## Jack R (Dec 15, 2014)

slim_boy_fat said:


> You've chosen a really difficult subject for your first go with a new [and therefore, strange to you] camera. High contrast between the snow and the dog mean that the meter is averaging the scene and you lose details in your pet. What settings were you using, full auto exposure?
> 
> A play with 'levels' in Photoshop might improve things a bit.
> 
> Not to be taken as criticism, more an observation.


I know I've not made it easy for myself, and I am willing to learn so always happy for advice. :thumb:
So far I've only used for for about 15 to 20 photos and these four where the best out of the bunch, it was all done on the sports preset with everything on auto. All I did was switch on and press the button like I would do on my old compact, i'll see if I can find the photo info for you in a min.


----------



## GaryKinghorn (Dec 10, 2017)

Get yourself down lower. Your images will look so much better. 

Lovely dog.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk


----------



## Andyblue (Jun 20, 2017)

JR1982 said:


> First proper go with my new canon EOS1300D :thumb:


Well for a first attempt, you could have chosen something a little easier ? Maybe a still life that ain't running round like a loon in the snow 

Auto (green square) is fine to start with, but don't forget it isn't the answer to all situations / shots... Think about what your subject is / doing and try one of the other settings - eg choosing sport setting, would give you an continuous tracking focus and (hopefully) keeps the subject in focus, it also increases the shutter so you tend to get a sharper shot, with less subject movement - but this also reduces the background blur (so for a car, you'd have a less sense of speed) - this is where your panning technique comes in 

What I also recommend, have a look at what the camera shot settings / parameters recorded to the photo were, then you can decide how you would like to improve it and can go from these settings - so one example if you had a shutter speed in Auto of say 80 and you were getting some unwanted blur, increase to 200 or ... to remove it - and the opposite to increase it, so if you were shooting a car moving and it was frozen in time in the photo because shutter speed of 450, drop to 200 or 120 or... etc to increase the background blur.

Hope it helps, enjoy your new camera and feel free to ask away bud, I'll see if I can help


----------



## Fentum (May 1, 2017)

What a fine hound!

Peter


----------



## GaryKinghorn (Dec 10, 2017)

In general terms a good rule of thumb is to ensure the shutter speed is at least the same as the lens size. So if you are shooting with a 200mm lens the shutter speed should be at the very least 1/200 to get sharp images. There are exceptions, but for a starter it's a good rule to remember. And don't forget if you are using a crop camera, which I assume you are you need to multiply the lens length by the crop factor. So with a 1.6x crop camera a 200mm lens becomes a 320mm lens so you need at least 1/320th shutter speed.

The AV function is one which is often used. It's kind of a half way house between fully automatic and fully manual. 

Spend some time understanding the relationship between ISO, shutter speed (exposure) and aperture (F-stop) and you'll be on your way

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk


----------



## bigbrother (Jun 30, 2011)

Now you have a "proper" camera you will get lots of conflicting advice and your head will be spinning, when i got my first DSLR i looked on Youtube for advice and found a great brit called Mike Browne very well respected and easy to understand if you look at his earlier vids (4+years ago) lots of good tips on using the controls, if you stick to one or two experts you won't get confused and lose interest, but most of all have fun and practice, practice practice

Get a tripod and take the same static picture with different settings a see what happens.

At some point you will need some photo editing software, all pro photos you see have been doctored or retouched, it's not cheating they have been doing it since day one.
Everybody uses Photoshop or Lightroom but i think these are monthly subs now if you have a Mac get Affinity knocks Photoshop of it pedestal and a one of payment.


----------



## vectra (Feb 3, 2008)

Also
Next time you shoot in snow change the white balance to shade.


----------

