I have my first real digi cam on the way to me. It is the Canon Rebel DSLR 8 mgpxl version. I have an EOS that I am using for slides now. The question is, I set up my shots in the TV mode and have had great results ((most of the time untill operator errors kicked in)) using either print or slide film. On the DSLR, it has basically the same modes, should I set it up for my shots like I do on my SLR or go full auto? Any tips here from people using the Canon DSLR would be much appriciated.
Where are we taking these pictures? If you are taking Model railroad pictures of your layout I would use the AV mode(Apeture Value) and a tripod for the best Depth Of Field,also set your white balance for your type of lighten used.
Just take it out and experiment with it. If you don't like the results, delete 'em. The beauty of digital SLR's. I'm sure that Canon's are excellent, as are their 35mm. I have a Nikon and as I have reported in several other threads, I LOVE it. :teeth:
I shot with a Digital Rebel XT. I generally shoot in the Program mode ("P") when railfanning. The Program mode allows you to do things that full Auto does not, such as enable multiple frames per second. There are lots of other adjustments you can make as well. When shooting stationary objects in good light, I will generally switch to Apeture periority (Av) and move to an F stop between 11 and 22. Enjoy your new toy! Harold
Thanks for the help folks. I guess I will have to do alot of experiments and go from there. Nice thing is that I wont have to worry about is that going to be under or over exposed as I will be able to see it a few seconds later. I will also now be able to play with all the modes and then take the lessons learned and use them on my Canon SLR when I use it as well. Getting my digi by no means that I will stop shooting slides. Guess I will use it now for rosters and other shots. While the digi is mainly for main line action. Dont know, even on some of the chases I get in on, I will mix it up and do both. But it will be fun either way.
I have a Canon Rebel XT and have found it much more versatile than the Canon film SLR it replaced. Namely, you can experiment anywhere while reading the manual, see immediate results, delete the bad ones, and make notes in the manual margins on what NOT to do next time....:teeth:
Digital is great for that.... shoot bunches of pics then delete the ones you don't like (basically for free!) Harold
I tend shoot fast moving trains when railfanning so I go with 'S' or shutter priority mode setting and let the camera determine the aperture ot ensure the images do not come out blurry. The caveat here is it is easy to have the lens wide open thus affecting depth of field. A quick metering check of the lighting conditions with the zoom maxed when I get at the photo site will let me know what to expect in the way of exposure and I'll will adjust the ISO setting accordingly.
I usually bump the ISO setting up to 800 (4X the best 200 ISO) when shooting fast moving objects, or using a telephoto handheld. I'm just not as steady as I was when I began 40 years ago. Image degradation on the Nikons (D100 & D70) is noticeable, but not objectionable. It's better to have a sharp picture with some degradation than a blurry picture with no degradation.
Chessie, I'm not sure I could have gotten this shot at 1/500. By boosting the ISO to 800, I took it at 1/2000. The lens was a 70-300mm at 300mm.
I love my Rebel, but the only real problem I have with it is the short amount of photos I can take before it has to write the information to the card. If you're looking at just clicking away as a train goes by, you might not get every shot you want before the camera does it's own thing. Then again, I have the original DSLR Rebel (not XT) so they might have improved that... Either way, it's a great camera!
The burst capabilities have been steadily improved on the XT and XTi. I have noticed that the XTi seems to focus faster on moving trains as well. Harold
Craig, Are you using a fast CF card? Just make sure it's the camera and not the memory. The Sandisk Ultra II line is pretty good for speed. You can get a 2GB card for $75 delivered now.
Craig, Are you shooting JPG? If you're shootting raw or Tiff, you'll have significant processing time. I shoot JPG all the time now, and can see only the slightest of degradations.
Well I have gotten my Digi Rebal XT. I have played around with it here at the house and love it. It is the latest version on the XT, not the XTI. Hope to be out near some tracks with it Friday to see how well I do with some trains. So far I love it, it may end up totally replacing my SLR.
I rarely see a reason for having ISO under 400. In film you get slightly less grain at 100 and in digital slighting less noise. But with modern color negative film and current digital cameras there shouldn't be objectionable grain or noise at 400 in the first place. And I think the higher shutter speeds and better depth of field at 400 more than makeup for any loss in image quality. I'd rather risk a little extra grain/noise than blur or being out of focus, especially with a fast moving target like a train. In my newspaper days, 400 was the standard ISO (ASA back then) and we never even thought about anything less. (The good old days of Tri-X.)
Ah, old Tri-X! I have fond memories of pushing it to 1600 and no one noticing because the newspapers printed at about 85 dpi. With a long lens, I get better images at ISO 400-800 at a 2x-to-4x shutter speed than with ISO 200 at a slow shutter speed. There's simply no comparison. I shoot JPGs these days, as the in-camera processing is better than I can accomplish with RAW data. I used to shoot RAW, but found I was spending a lot of time doing what the Nikon in-camera software does better. I've done a lot of testing under controlled conditions. It takes a pixel-by-pixel examination to detect much difference between 200 and 800 ISO. Even then, the difference is not great, and not detectable in most prints at 11 x 17 size. It's kinda like this: "Yep, that pixel is sorta light pink at 200 ISO; it's sorta lighter pink a little bit at ISO 800." I have a great test subject out my back door: the Sandia Mountains. The mountains contain every test you'd want to do for color and sharpness, and they are the images I base my observations on.
