Lesson one for Sue

Now that my camera is on it's way, I would like some tips.

Here is one of several pictures I took last  year trying to 'capture the moment'. The rays of sun were cutting through the trees, so beautiful, but I wasn't able to capture it on my little point and shoot, most of the pictures just show a vivid yellow blob at the end of the path.

When I get my Cannon Digital Rebel XTi is there something special I would use to capture the sun's rays?

Picture by Sue Herrera

I cant seem to put any photos on here, am I doing something wrong? I click on the insert/edit image at the bottom, I tried putting in the ID number but nothing shows. I also tried copying and pasting the link like it says but still nothing on here. HELP!!!!

Thats a lovely pic by the way Sue! 

Sue.

Do you have any photo image processing software such as photshop or elements.  If so try playing with the contrest and exposure settings, you might find that the effects you would like are still hidden within the picture, but just need a little help to appear. Good luck with the new camera.  I'm now off to put the clocks forward.

 Regards Roy.

PS Some more feathers for you to count will be on the way soon.  Courtsey of the 400D, it is a great piece of kit.

I do have Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 and Adobe Premiere Elements 4, neither of which I know the first thing about (just got a new laptop and had bought them as part of the package). But I'm willing to play around with it.

I just want to know what kind of additions I will be buying for my new camera, I'm so excited.

Sue

All clocks put forward, so it is now at least one hour since my last post.

I have just had a thought, included with your new camera should be a couple of CDs containing software, one should be 'Digital Photo Professional' This will enable you to do some image enhancement if you don't already have other programs.

Regards Roy J

Sue.

You could buy all different types of filters, but in truth you will not need them, all that you need is practice and to play about with different settings.  take several shots of the same scene with different settings to see how things turn out, you can easlily delete the rubbish and keep the good ones.

I was filming on Friday, took over 200 images and when i got them home found that 75% were not worth keeping. I gained in experience and it costs nothing to delete what is worthless.

Regards Roy J.

Sue

On second thoughts you might like to buy a 'UV' filter this might give some slight imporevment in picture quality, especially in the area where you live, if nothing else it will help to protect your lens from dirt and scratches. 

 Regards

Hi Sue, one of the good aspects of digital, is the exif info files saved with your picture. When you load a photo, go to file and click on it. Somewhere down the list you should  see, "exif info". Click on that and it will give you all the info that is stored with your picture. Make of camera, time, date and most importantly, the exposure details. Shutter speed, apperture and iso settings. you can learn a lot from that. Judging what is wrong with the photo, and why. At first, it is worthwhile taking a set of pics at different settings, and seeing which ones work. The exif info can give you a better idea what settings to use next time in those conditions.

The next important tool, is the histogram. Shows you the spread of shades between white and black. Read the book to  find out how to use it, because it is a photo saver. You can bring a dull photo to life. It will take too long to explain it here. Hope this helps in some small way.