little help and insight from experianced photographer's please

[Kryptic4L]

you guys are awsome so far, ive talked to the sister and she sounded like she really wanted to do it, aka is very excited. which was a good feeler.

after talking with future shop today, and me rolling my eye's when the guy told me the xsi was the exact same as the f1i without video. well ive proved my emotion correct. http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos500d/

there is some critical differnce's there to me which are important, the lens reconition sounds nice, as well as the higher iso ( most important ) and beats it pretty much across the board. I'm still on the fence about the 50d as it has the higher frames per second which is a feature I adore, other then that I dont see much in term's of things i see that i like better over the t1i.

as far as the point and shoot goes i have a good one a canon elph 990 IS but I originally learned photography in highschool with slr's and perhaps thats why my camera's keep warming shelve's is because i get frustrated with trying to adjust them.

so all in all its been a productive day, however i still need to look at full package price's as the mikey has mentioned the extra battery, battery grip, lens, maybe a flash, case etc... it sounds like if i go with the tl1 i can skip the card as i already have an 8 gig in my canon elph.

[TheMikey]

While the 50D is a nice body, I'd probably recommend that you go with a smaller body just to start with and invest the other money in quality glass. The quality of your pictures will scale much better with good lenses than with a good body.

None of the DSLR bodies will really take a better picture than any other (mostly just a larger photo), but the better quality of glass that you have in the lens (i.e. more pricey lenses) the better quality the image will be when it hits the sensor. Even the new Canon 7D with a basic lens on it will take a poorer photo than a Rebel XS with an L series lens on it.

Also, with the T1, you should note that it records video in 1080p and, depending on your card, you might want to go with something faster. If you got one of those red-boxed generic Sandisk SD cards, it's likely going to be a detriment to your camera as it's too slow to fit full HD recording on it. And depending if you shoot in RAW or not, a slower card in burst mode won't keep up with the camera.

Edit: And also, the guy at Futureshop was right about the difference in the T1i and the XSi. There's three primary differences: the T1i has 1080p video recording (vs. none in XSi), a 15MP sensor (vs. a 12.1MP), and a 3" LCD screen with 920K dots of resolution (vs. 3" w/ 230K). Truthfully, between those two cameras it's going to come down to whether or not you want video. 12MP vs. 15MP is negligible unless you're planning on printing off big posters on a regular basis.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/comp...s500d&show=all

Furthermore, you could probably argue that the XSi is actually capable of taking better pictures than the T1, for the sole fact that it's cramming less mega pixels on the same size of sensor. This means better low light performance and more detail as, essentially, you're getting more photo to each pixel resulting in a clearer picture: "From a theoretical point of view pixel density should affect the amount of random digital noise present in an image and the dynamic range in the image the camera produces. Dynamic range is how much detail can be held in shadow areas before highlights begin to loose texture or, how many F stops of light range the camera sensor can capture. Again, in theory, larger photosites (less pixel density) on the sensor should produce less random noise and more dynamic range for any given sensor size." (http://www.sphoto.com/techinfo/dslrs...slrsensors.htm).

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

I think that you should consider the Nikon D5000 body only and purchase the Nikon 18-200 lens with it.

The kit lenses that come with the Canons are useless as far as quality goes.

The Maxtrix metering system in the Nikons is very accurate especially in backlighting situations. I think that you should get your sister to familiarize herself with using flash and understanding "backlighting" as well as when to use "fill flash".

I am sure that there will be lots of photos taken at sunset as it is the most dramatic lighting but without the proper use of flash photography, you and your fiance will be silhouette.

Although the 18-200 lens isn't prime, it is VR and has ED glass which will help with photo sharpness. But most importantly, the zoom range makes it very convenient to compose without having to change lenses all the time.

I agree that Primes are much better for sharpness but having 2 or 3 Primes to add to the mix of using a unfamiliar camera, will only contribute to confusion. As well, Primes are very heavy to carry around.

Also, shoot in RAW so that you can make exposure changes and White Balanace Changes later. RAW's exposure control can rescue when you have underexposed photos of 1 to 2 f stops.

For ISO, I would commit to 200 ISO, (100 ISO if it's really sunny and bright and only outdoors) during the day if you end up wanting to enlarge the photos and go 400-800 for the night shots. Although these cameras have ISO settings to 3200, I have never shot that high and can't comment on the noise that may occur.

For artistic reasons, never have the subjects straight in the middle. Section the frame into thirds and have the subjects positioned in the left or right but usually never in the middle. This process adds dynamic viewing. You will need to learn how to use the Focus Lock feature to do this unless you know how to move the focus boxes around in the camera using the control pads.

Because you are shooting digital, buy lots of memory and go crazy shooting everything and anything. Change angles of view, so shoot low and vice versa, shoot high looking down. And for children, make sure you are shooting at their height so bend your knees and you will get some great candid shots.

When the vows are being done, take a few pictures of the bride and groom but have a look around the audience for the emotional photos. Usually, it's the brides parents who will have the tears. This will be the most powerful and emotional image of the day if you can capture it.

I'll add some more tips later.

Cheers.

[Kryptic4L]

" Furthermore, you could probably argue that the XSi is actually capable of taking better pictures than the T1,"

Sensor size XSI 22.2 x 14.8 mm (3.28 cm²) TL1 22.3 x 14.9 mm (3.32 cm²) 50D 22.3 x 14.9 mm (3.32 cm²)


It appears the tli has the same sensor as the 50d, can you fill me in please as to what detail I am overlooking. As I am sure there is something im overlooking.


Again thank you guys so much all the creative critism is awsome, and I enjoy the devils advocate. As its giving me alot to think about

[TheMikey]

The more pixels you shove onto the same physical sensor, the more chance for digital noise to be present during your shots.

Think of it this way: if you draw 12 million squares on a piece of paper and then draw 15 million squares on the same piece of paper, in which squares do you think you'll be able to see more detail? The larger the square, the more detail that is present. Now think of this like picture. The larger your pixel, the more picture you'll get.

That might not be as clear as I hoped, but I do hope you get the idea

[Kryptic4L]

still not really following, to me i would say the more pixel's the finer the picture the better it turns out. when you put it that way i think if my monitor its a 24" screen when i put it to a low res at 800 x 600 it looks terrible at max setting to lazy to look it up 1900 x whatever its sharper then heck . with less distortion. same peice of paper but it has more defined pixels in the higher res. I can see quality going the other way when you try and push more pixels onto a sensor then it was built for.

Pixel density
5.4 MP/cm² canon d7
4.5 MP/cm² 50d
4.5 MP/cm² t1i
3.3 MP/cm² nikon d90
3.7 MP/cm² xsi

if we go off that its saying your going to get the best pictures with the d90 moving onto the xsi with the canon d7 trailing far behind.




with that being said however, i am really starting to believe the lens and the person is far greater then the equipment especially after looking at some pictures taken by the lady at n-r.com with a xs camera.


and one feature I have grown a liking to is the led screen on the top of the camera. might have to track down a older camera with this feature.

[TheMikey]

It's kind of hard to start comparing monitor resolutions to camera resolutions because resolutions on cameras are substantially higher resolution.

Basically it's getting to a point of diminishing returns.

If you forget about megapixels for a moment and just think about pixel density, the true professional cameras (Canon 5d MkII, Nikon D700 for example) have pixel densities of 2.4 MP/cm² and 1.4 MP/cm². The reason for this is that there's no need to cram as much pixels onto a sensor as possible because the DSLR sensors are pretty high quality as-is. If you're only planning on taking 4x6 photos with the occasional 8x10, then hypothetically, you'd only need about a 6MP camera. However, what the higher megapixel count helps with later is if you want to print off a 13x19 poster and want to be able to crop.

That's where high megapixels help.

However, the problem with pixel density is that it makes the photo, essentially, too digital. Too high a pixel density, and you start to get more errors when you amplify the signal (as in, use a higher ISO, which you'd do in low light). The higher a pixel count, the more the liklihood of getting digital noise when you bump up your ISO. Less light gets to each individual pixel and, as such, the camera has to digitally compensate.

Quite truthfully, this is an issue that's splitting hairs. In all liklihood the average person will never be in a situation where it's going to matter. However being a camera salesperson, I always try to hit home that the megapixel race is a lot like buying a Lambourghini over a Ferrari simply because it has a top speed of 235mph vs. 230mp. 99% of people will never see/care about the difference. Buy what you want.

Case in point, the single best P&S shoot camera on the market right now is the Panasonic Lumix LX3. They purposely dropped the pixel count to 10MP and, in doing so, blows away any other camera it's competing. Including the Nikon P6000(13MP) and Ganon G10 (15MP).

I think I'm rambling at this point so I'll stop

[fkshiu]

A low-end DSLR body, an OK lens or two and a crash course in digital photography is all your friend would need from a technical basis unless you are wanting poster-sized reprints.

However, the one thing that has helped me the most by far as a novice photographer was reading Michael Freeman's book on composition: "The Photographer's Eye". It is decidedly non-technical in its approach as it has nary a mention of f-stops or pixel counts, but shows you in a straightforward fashion what makes a "good" photograph to the human eye. He's a very good writer to boot.

http://digital-photography-school.co...reeman-review#