Eos 300

[crofter]

I am about to buy the new canon digetal rebel and have been downloading a lot of sample pictures.. they are all good in every respect except colour vividness and brightness. Im use to useing fuji velvia and am worried I wont be satisfied with the didgetal results. Does anyone have any comments. I want the canon because i already own a 420ex and 28-135 is lens.

[srijith]

You might want to contact some of the people listed at http://www.pbase.com/shecodes/drebelpeople and ask them personally. One obvious person to ask would be Sue Crocker(shecodes).

[shecodes]

I am about to buy the new canon digetal rebel and have been downloading a lot of sample pictures.. they are all good in every respect except colour vividness and brightness. Im use to useing fuji velvia and am worried I wont be satisfied with the didgetal results. Does anyone have any comments. I want the canon because i already own a 420ex and 28-135 is lens.

Crofter, I haven't use film since 1999, so I can't comment on the Canon versus Velvia.

You may need to do some post processing depending on what you are shooting.

Buy locally if you are worried about returning the camera.

I use a small shareware app to do some post processing called PhotoCleaner.

http://www.photocleaner.com

Let's put it this way, I've taken 2500 pictures since October 5th. I'm really enjoying the camera.

[sheila]

I am about to buy the new canon digetal rebel and have been downloading a lot of sample pictures.. they are all good in every respect except colour vividness and brightness. Im use to useing fuji velvia and am worried I wont be satisfied with the didgetal results. Does anyone have any comments. I want the canon because i already own a 420ex and 28-135 is lens.

You may want to take a look at http://www.fredmiranda.com (go to Software) and purchase his actions called Digital Velvia (I have and they are great). You will need Photoshop 6 or upwards but they are worth every cent. Also look at his DSPro sharpening actions. They save a lot of time in PS.

Cheers
Sheila

[shecodes]

You may want to take a look at http://www.fredmiranda.com (go to Software) and purchase his actions called Digital Velvia (I have and they are great). You will need Photoshop 6 or upwards but they are worth every cent. Also look at his DSPro sharpening actions. They save a lot of time in PS.

Cheers
Sheila

I have the DSPro sharpening actions. Great value. Haven't seen the Digital Velvia action.. but looks interesting. Thanks for the info.

[crofter]

While I was writing my question my wife was ordering the camera for me
I have taken a couple of test shots and can only say they dramaticly exceeded my expectations. I cant believe the colour and sharpness.
I am really impressed. Thank for your coments i will visit the links as soon as I finished playiny with My new Toy.

[srijith]

Great crofter. Happy for you. One day I will be able to fork out money for beauties like this

Keep shooting and keep sharing them with us.

[crofter]

Great crofter. Happy for you. One day I will be able to fork out money for beauties like this

Keep shooting and keep sharing them with us.

I uploaded one of my first photos to Pbase which seemed very promising. But today i went to an grarden in the country and tooks some landscape shots which were basicly a load of garbage. I hope it was stupidity on my behalf but although the gardens look good ,the sky in most shots was way over exposed.
I was play with the parameters earlier in the day and im hopeing i did something to this to cause th problem. I go back and try next weekend in the daylight and try again. Least it didnt cost me the $33.00 for processing a roll of film

Ernie

[bobtrips]

When shooting digital you need to be very careful not to overexpose the highlights (the lightest parts of the shot). Digital does not have as much dynamic range as print film, but about the same as slide/transparency film.

But you have to shoot digital in the opposite manner of slide film. Slide film is very unforgiving on the 'dark' end of things. Digital will let you reach into the dark/shadow areas and retrieve details that aren't immediately apparent.

When I'm shooting outdoors I almost always bracket my shots (very easy with 'auto-bracket' and free). Often the less exposed shot gives me a better sky and I can use software to tweak the rest of the shot to produce what I want.

Also, with the 300D you have a post-shot histogram available. After you take a shot review it on the histogram. If you've got a peak at the far right of the graph then you can be pretty sure that you blew out the brighter areas, just re-shoot.

Digital is different from film, it takes a bit of learning to get the best from your camera. Hang in there.

[crofter]

I have been useing the ae lock to good effect. Your right about over exposing the light areas. I have been useing the info dispaly to see the over exposed areas. its definatly a diferent skill to taking slides. Im keen to go into the rain forest and see what happens with the waterfall shots .[http://www.pbase.com/crofter/inbox][/url]

[ang1970]

Hi crofter,

I've been using the olympus c3000z for a couple years now, and researching digital SLR's for several months. At that price point, there is NO competition with the dreble, and I'm looking forward to getting one as soon as I have the extra cash. There are a few d-SLR's that handle color slightly differently, if you spend at least 60% more... PLUS lenses. And even then the difference isn't so drastic that it couldn't be duplicated in PS. I've grown accustomed to processing everything in PS in order to compensate for a couple of the camera's deficiencies - and most of those problems don't exist on the dreble.

Number one problem with my c3kz is white balance. In auto-wb mode it gets the right color only about 50% of the time. The dreble doesn't have kelvin wb (if you're totally anal) like the eos10d, but it's a whole world better than what I'm used to from my camera.

Second major problem is ccd noise. This is a total pita to correct, and I've given up on it. The camera has lived a glorious life, and is ready to be put to pasture. New ccd's are better, and I expect a much longer life out of the dreble.

Third problem is on-board sharpening. Because of the nature of conventional ccd's, digital sharpening is needed with all cams that use them, therefore most cameras have it built in. The sharpening on the c3kz looks very harsh and un-film-like (you may be able to see what I'm talking about at http://www.pbase.com/cameras/olympus/c3000z), so it is better to disable it and use USM in PS. From the samples I've seen so far, the dreble sharpening still isn't as good as USM, but it does have a natural, film-like quality. USM might be neccesary only in specific cases, such as very large prints.
(edit* I just threw this together, if you're interested... http://www.pbase.com/ang1970/olympus_vs_usm)

bobtrips is entirely on point with the comments about digital dynamic range. The overexposure issue applies to all digital cameras (so far). Maybe manufacturers will eventually come up with a ccd that responds more like film, giving a full 10 - 12 stop usable range. But that's a different story.

I look forward to seeing your results as you get more acquainted with the camera!

Cheers,
Angelo

[crofter]

Thanks for all of your tips . I am now useing the ae lock a lot more to get better exposures. have worked out how to use the aeb and tried USm sharpening in Ps. My state of fiancial embarassment at the moment is such that mention purchaseing more camera equipment or software will have me divorced I have uploaded one of the best of the photos after I manipulated it in ps to my gallery.
EC

[bobtrips]

Angelo -

I find your comments about the digital images you get not being "film like" interesting. Those of us who have shot film for many years have gotten so use to the way that film distorts reality (lack of the sharpness of digital and grain) that we have come to see it as natural.

Perhaps we should be comparing digital to what we see with our eyes?

And your right about dynamic range. More would be wonderful. But since I shot transparency film for a few decades (almost never print film) I didn't feel that I was loosing anything when switching to digital.

[ang1970]

Perhaps we should be comparing digital to what we see with our eyes?

By all means, yes! That bar is even higher. One may say a primary goal is suspension of disbelief. I guess I've been so concerned with digital shortcomings that I have been overlooking the problems that were always inherent to film. I have no intention to put film up on a pedestal. I should have said "The sharpening on the c3kz looks very harsh and artificial."

Thank you for reminding me of that important subtlety.