EOS Rebel T5/1200D owners?

[Red Shirt]

So my wife bought me a Canon Rebel T5 with 2 zoom lenses for my birthday. I like to bird watch and she thought I might try taking pictures. I haven't attempted it yet but the few outdoor photos I tried turned out OK and the pictures I took of people at my birthday party turned out nice enough for first pics. I also have a blog where I review tea. For the last couple years I have used a simple Samsung point and click for reasonably good close up pics especially considering I limit the size to 800x600 pixels. I thought if a toy camera took good enough pics, a beginner DSLR should blow it out of the water. Maybe if I knew how to use it that would be true. My indoor macro shots all come out way on the yellow side. The software that came with the camera is more cryptic than the camera interface. I tried turning on more lights. No difference. Tried using something besides auto mode and upped the light adjustment. Setting it on the lightbulb setting made the picture way too bright. I'm not an experienced photographer (obviously), can any one offer advice specific to this camera? Is there an easy to use freeware photo editing program I should try?

[Shpaget]

The yellowness comes from the wrong white balance setting. The light bulb is the setting to use if you use incandescent lights to light your scene. Other settings include a sun, clouds, little fluorescent tube, flash, shade and the "K" (it may also look like two triangles pointing at each other and a blob between and slightly above them). Use the K, which is a manual setting for the color temperature.

Specifically, if the lights you are using, and you should use one type of lights, is more yellowish as with tungsten bulbs, then a low number (roughly 3000 K) is what you need. If you use a more bluish lights such as halogens, you need a higher number (4000 - 5500 K).

The K stands for Kelvin and represents the temperature an ideal black body would need to have to glow with that color. It's not something you need to worry about, though, it's just good to know.

So, practical advice:

Set the white balance to K and a number that gives you OK-ish color with the light you use, don't worry if it's not perfect, we'll fix that. Next place a white paper in the frame and take a shot, proceed to take a shot of your subjects. Now all your photos will have a slightly wrong white balance, but that's what the photo of a piece of paper is for.

Since we know that paper is white we can use that to tell the software what should be white. In, for example Lightroom, you can take the eye dropper tool to set the white balance on the paper photo and transfer that same correction data to the entire series of photos you've taken in the same setting.

If you don't have Lightroom, Photoshop or a similar software that is made specifically for photo manipulation, go get yourself GIMP or Paint.net. Both are free.

In GIMP you can try the Auto white balance tool. It may work properly, depending on the picture. Go to Colors -> Levels and find the Auto button. If it doesn't work properly, pick the rightmost eye dropper tool and find something white in the scene, but not to brightly lit or in shadow. Try the missle eye dropper tool as well.

There is also Color -> Auto -> White balance tool, try that too.

In any case, I use Lightroom for all my image editing, it's much more powerful and better at these things, but GIMP can do a decent job as well.

All that being said, try to nail the white balance setting in camera as precise as you can, using the manual setting K and picking the correct value. It will make your life a lot easier.

Auto white balance may also work for you. It's the AWB setting in the camera

EDIT:

Oh, I almost forgot... Happy birthday!

Also, I don't know what kind of lenses your wife got you, but photographing wildlife is not easy and professionals use some quite expensive gear to do it, so don't expect miracles from your setup. Well, unless she dished out some serious cash for the lenses.

My advice to you is, unless you have one get yourself a tripod (don't spend less than $150-200 on it, otherwise you'll be wasting your money on anything cheaper and make sure you get one with the ball head), next on a shopping list is a 50 mm f1,8 lens. It's the cheapest Canon lens, but it's excellent. A cheap chinese cable release for under $3 with free shipping should also be on your list (don't worry about knockoffs, there is literally nothing in it except an electrical contact, you're buying the cable with a connector, so genuine Canon is not really needed). If you need macro and can't quite get the magnification you want, you may also like to get yourself extension tubes. Ebay is full of them, just make sure you get the ones with electrical contacts. They are denoted as Autofocus ones. Don't bother with the ones that don't have the contacts.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Shpaget

[Red Shirt]

Thanks for the detailed reply! I am using some indirect outdoor lighting but it is via a covered porch. I supplement this with candelabra bulbs in the ceiling fan and a desk lamp. Yeah its all quite low tech. If it hadn't worked so well with the point and shoot I would not have expected it to work here. It also explains why I tried the light bulb setting. I made a homemade light box a couple years ago but kind of hate the sterility of using it. 

I tried the AWB button but couldn't figure out how to get it correct - I ended up with washed out pictures. I will try playing with the K setting.

I think my son has Gimp or maybe Photo Shop so got that covered.

I understand about the lenses and wildlife. Years ago I had a Canon T80 35mm with a few lenses - all low end but I had fun. Now with a digital camera and home software I should be able to do a little better once I understand a little more how to use the tools. Not expecting pro results.

The T5 came with an 18-55 image stabilizing lens and a 75-300 lens both manual and auto focus. I'll look into the 50mm lens. The f stop is half my current lens.

I have a tripod I bought to use with astronomical binoculars. I also have a cable release - if the one for the T80 works. I haven't looked at this yet. Cheap enough if it doesn't work. 

 

[Shpaget]

Great!

A few more things...

When you mount the camera on the tripod, turn off the image stabilization. More often than not, when on tripod it introduces blur. New and more expensive lenses have tripod detection system to turn it off automatically, but not the ones you have, so if you get less than sharp images, that might be your problem.

75-300 should serve you well for birds. It's a decently long lens.

50mm 1,8 is not only brighter than either of your current ones, but it is optically very good (much better than 18-55), it is also very small and light, so caring it around is less of a problem.

It does have its own issues like the housing and mount being made out of plastic, so it's less durable should it sturdy on the ground, but I've had mine for a while and it's seen its share of abuse. It's still going strong. Read a few reviews and decide for yourself.

Cable release from T80 will not work (at least not without an adapter) on modern EOS cameras. But a cable release really is not expensive, anyway. It's not a mandatory piece of equipments, you can use timer, it's just that I find it sometimes easier to use cable release when shooting macro.

You say washed out pictures and earlier you said you got the pictures way too bright. Try using exposure compensation. Put the camera in aperture priority mode, set the aperture to something like 5,6 or 6,3 (it doesn't really matter), crank the ISO to 800 or 1600 and while looking through the viewfinder press the shutter button halfway. The camera should focus, but also on the bottom of the viewfinder a scale will appear (-3..2..1..0..1..2..+3 with a small indicator marker somewhere on the scale). Every camera has somewhat different controls, for your specific take a look at this video 

 

 

For uniformly lit scenes, the marker should be at 0 for optimal brightness. Modern cameras have quite decent light meters, but they only consider the entire scene and take average value. If you have a brightly lit portion and a darker portion of scene, you may need to help the camera out in deciding what to meter for. If your images are coming out too bright or too dark, play around with that setting. Start with zero, if the images are too bright move a bit towards the -, if they are too dark, move towards the +.

[Renegrade]

10 hours ago, Shpaget said:

50mm 1,8 is not only brighter than either of your current ones, but it is optically very good (much better than 18-55), it is also very small and light, so caring it around is less of a problem.

I agree, I have the II model of that - it's very inexpensive, works very well with the APS-C bodies (digital Rebels and 30/40D etc), and takes great shots - crisp and clear.  The only caveat is that it's really bad when mounted on a full frame body (like a 1D or a 135 film body -- I have an old Rebel film camera that it's miserable on), but that's fairly high end use, and probably deserves more than a $99 lens heh.

[EliasDanger]

I always shoot in RAW format, then edit the files in Lightroom to get the best look. Really, if you want your pictures to be the best they can be, you'll need to learn to do this. Don't think that your new DSLR will blow the image quality of point and shoots out of the water. The DSLR is going to give you more control over what kind of image you get, the quality may be better, but you have to put the time in and figure out how to set the settings to get the results you want. If you don't want all that hassle, point and shoot is the way to go, simply put your new DSLR in AUTO and you get what you get. But I highly recommend that if you are really into photography, learn your camera and learn how to edit in Lightroom. Photoshop is for more aggressive editing, in my opinion, Lightroom is perfect for quick and easy RAW editing.

[Shpaget]

I use it primarily on 40D, but haven't noticed it being really bad on 5D MkII. Haven't used that combination too much, though.

In any case, not a great lens on full frame body is still better than no lens on full frame body (18-55 is EF-S, so it won't fit on full frame at all), furthermore T5/1200D is crop body, so corner and edge issues it might have are cut out anyway.

What Elias says is true. A DSLR won't give a drastic improvement, it just gives a much better control over the settings. Using it in Auto is wasting that capability. If you have a static setup and have time, it can easily take a few minutes to set up for that one photo.

For example, to make this photo it took me about 10-15 minutes to set it all up (move the trains to where I wanted them, figuring out where to put the light, placing and setting up the tripod, fiddling with the camera settings...). I had a picture in my head how I wanted it to look and then it was a matter of playing with the stuff I had at my disposal until I got the result I wanted.

In the end, the final product was what you see. I did not edit the photo at all (well, except resizing it for the web). When I have the time, I always try to get the image in the camera as close to the final product as I can get it, and make a point not to rely on post production for fixing it. Sometimes it's necessary, but if I can, I try to get it right in the camera.

[EliasDanger]

13 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

I use it primarily on 40D, but haven't noticed it being really bad on 5D MkII. Haven't used that combination too much, though.

In any case, not a great lens on full frame body is still better than no lens on full frame body (18-55 is EF-S, so it won't fit on full frame at all), furthermore T5/1200D is crop body, so corner and edge issues it might have are cut out anyway.

What Elias says is true. A DSLR won't give a drastic improvement, it just gives a much better control over the settings. Using it in Auto is wasting that capability. If you have a static setup and have time, it can easily take a few minutes to set up for that one photo.

For example, to make this photo it took me about 10-15 minutes to set it all up (move the trains to where I wanted them, figuring out where to put the light, placing and setting up the tripod, fiddling with the camera settings...). I had a picture in my head how I wanted it to look and then it was a matter of playing with the stuff I had at my disposal until I got the result I wanted.

In the end, the final product was what you see. I did not edit the photo at all (well, except resizing it for the web). When I have the time, I always try to get the image in the camera as close to the final product as I can get it, and make a point not to rely on post production for fixing it. Sometimes it's necessary, but if I can, I try to get it right in the camera.

Its a great shot, but why no editing? Editing can only improve the photo and get it closer to your vision for it. Its not like cheating or anything, its just adjusting the white balance and color settings the camera automatically makes for you by guessing. In my opinion, a photo isn't done until you run it through lightroom and give most of the sliders a bit of an adjustment, makes a HUGE impact on the photo.

[Shpaget]

5 minutes ago, EliasDanger said:

Editing can only improve the photo

Oh, i could show you plenty of examples of editing ruining a decent photos.

Yeah sure, it could be adjusted a bit, but I liked the reddish tint. In my opinion it goes well with the low light and long shadows, making it look like the picture was taken during a sun set.

[EliasDanger]

1 minute ago, Shpaget said:

Oh, i could show you plenty of examples of editing ruining a decent photos.

Yeah sure, it could be adjusted a bit, but I liked the reddish tint. In my opinion it goes well with the low light and long shadows, making it look like the picture was taken during a sun set.

True, editing can ruin a photo if you don't know what you're doing and you go nuts with it.

And I'm not saying you're photo NEEDS to be edited. Or any photo NEEDS to be edited. The choice comes down to the photographer, if you like the way it comes out without editing, then don't edit, if you don't want to. I just don't think editing should necessarily be viewed as something you do to photos only if you absolutely NEED to. Every photo is edited somehow, by the camera or by you, but if you shoot and RAW and edit it yourself, you get to make the choices, not the camera.

[Red Shirt]

Spent some time with the camera. Honestly the interface is not very intuitive. The manual is zzzzz and _tiny print. For an entry level DSLR you would think Canon would put some effort into making it a little more beginner friendly. It's kind of like the learning curve for a certain game we all love - pretty steep. Anyway, I can take pretty much exactly the picture I want outdoors. Can't always remember how to get to some settings, especially the f stop when in Av mode. I seem to be able to set everything but shutter speed. Haven't tried manual mode yet, baby steps. Even on fully automatic mode I took some pretty good amateur pics of family in an indoor gym setting. I took some macro pics on my shady porch of a Mtn Dew bottle (the bottle cap pic is quite high art) while messing with the camera. Sharp focus with a blurry background just as I wanted. 

Thought I was ready to try indoor blog pics again. They are better but no where near publish worthy. I think until I get better lighting it just isn't going to improve. My son has Photoshop and I managed to more or less adjust the colors. PS is way overkill for my needs but the software that came with my point and shoot won't white adjust.

Thanks for the help. I'll keep at it, but it still boggles the mind that my $50 camera takes great blog pics while this one won't under the same conditions.

[Shpaget]

Can you post one of the pictures you took for your blog, along with the settings you used? It may help us figuring out the problem.

In aperture priority you have no control over the shutter speed, except through exposure compensation. The camera will find a suitable setting for whatever f stop you choose.

It may also be useful if we could see the wide angle of the setup you use for indoor blog pics.

[Red Shirt]

@Shpaget Success! I was finally familiar enough with the controls that reading the manual made a little more sense. First thing this morning I set up and took a photo of just the white background I use for blog pics. Then I imported it as my custom white balance setting. Very first subject photo I took afterwards was really good color-wise. Focus isn't perfect but I know how to fix that. Now to get my cable release ordered and I think I'll be all set. 

[Shpaget]

Great!

Yes, DSLR require some learning.

Next little tip I have for you is unless you have a really sturdy tripod, when you take a shot, the mirror flaps, claps and bounces around introducing some shake. In most circumstances it really makes no impact, but when shooting at high magnification (if a penny coin doesn't fit entirely in the frame and higher magnifications) it becomes noticable. In those cases using mirror lock-up feature makes a difference.

You might find that usefull if you take macro shots of small leaves.

[Red Shirt]

47 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

In those cases using mirror lock-up feature makes a difference.

You might find that usefull if you take macro shots of small leaves.

Back to the manual! I don't recall seeing that feature but then I wouldn't have been looking for it either.

[Shpaget]

My apologies. I don't own a 1200D, so I'm talking from my experience with other Canon cameras.

Apparently 1200D doesn't have manual setting for mirror lock up, so it's not likely you'll find it in the user manual. It does have it as an automated function, though, when using Live View and, according to this forum thread, when you set it to 2 second delay.