anyone uses this canon 400d?? any recommendation on the general settings??

i am using sharpness +1 cause its abit soft...how about saturation and colour, etc?? any suggestions on the settings???

I prefer lower saturation, maybe -1 becoz images from DSLRs tend to be a lil' strong in colour, but if you're suffering from soft images, it's not the camera's problem ... you need to get yourself a better lens

Shoot in RAW, then you'll have more control over your image. The downside is that you need to post process your pics 1st before you convert them into jpeg

.. thus slowing you down and can affect your workflow if you're doing it for money and time is a factor. I always recommend shooting in JPEG format.

yaya, slowing you down is a factor. Just a suggestion though because i always shoot in RAW XD each has its own benefits and downsides la hhaha

Well at the least you know what RAW formats are and what benefits they have. I have asked photographers during events why are they shooting in RAW format and they answered me "I dunno, they say shooting RAW is better"

The point is "... shooting RAW is better" is correct in a way, but I seriously pity their "I dunno..." mentality. 'Monkey see Monkey do' is very bad for the learning curve. Many newbies are shy to ask, hence they get more questions than answers at the end of the day, they should understand WHAT they are doing and WHAT contributes to an image result.

haha, yeah... but sadly alot of people are shy to ask, dont know why la haha... but i think soon enough they'll(well, some of them) learn in time what kind of settings are better for what kind of situations haha... self experience or someone will tegur them XD

I self-helped more than a year mastering digital photography with a DSLR before I can take control of my images via camera settings and post processing. Arguably, film was much much easier to control : Basically I had only a roll of film in my camera, one fixed ISO and an entire world to snap. Shutter speed and aperture is all I need to know and to set to get that perfect shot. With DSLRs, I had to worry about the new ways they are getting the exposure readings and colour render ALL OVER again! And ... I took up a new term, something I never encountered during film time ...

Colour Balance

This post has been edited by ac98: Dec 30 2006, 11:01 PM

u mean u didnt experience with chemical effects?

somehow i feel lucky

Even my photography class last time my lecturer still stick to film though he had an DSLR of himself. Yeah, sometimes im facing colour balance issues too... kinda hard to learn it, and histogram... do you know how to read them? and white balances, though its simple but I have trouble with it too.. =/

so colour saturation is like making the colour abit to strong??

ie, the reds are super red and the orange are super orange??

Yeah, histogram are not difficult to read but they function as good a guide as your LCD, so stick to your LCD. White Balance ... well ... not many ppl can actually tell me what is wrong with their images impromptu during events, so how would they know HOW to go about correct what they dun even know was wrong?

It's so easy to turn an image from colour to black and white, over-saturate or under-saturate them, but how do you intend to balance out images damaged by sodium light? Flouracent light? Tungsten lighting? Bulb light? A candle or a spotlight? There are just too many questions out there about WB. Even before any photographer tells ppl "Oh, I like it yellow like this!" he must ALSO know how to explain his style to his viewers before one of them puts one hand up and says "But that is not yellow, it's orange/red/magenta!!"

Yes you're right but it's not 'making' the colour abit to strong ... the colour is already BEING too strong.

So stick to my LCD huh? =/ But sometimes the things displayed in the LCD tends to trick the eye =/ well, have to double check sometimes though haha...

I think that only can be learn in trial and error gua... damn so many things to learn! XD

I cannot really trust the 400d's LCD for White Balance (WB) adjustments. IMHO, the LCD cannot represent accurate WB. For this reason, I always shot in RAW and process it on my computer. With JPEG, you can only do so much for post-processing WB correction.

Shooting in RAW, also will help if you overexpose or underexpose your shot by +1EV or -1EV range (estimate). With JPEG, all highlight/shadow details which were clipped are not saved. Therefore, it cannot be recovered later.

RAW is a must for important shots.

i tried shooting in JPEG for a few days....
kenot tahan, switch back to RAW
not that anything went wrong....its just feel weird to shoot in JPEG

ur HDD must be too much space

Burn to DVD la..

but i just heard from someone said regret taking raw already

Why RAW?
If you ask me:

In the event you snapped a shot with wrong WB or wrong exposure, with RAW format, the chances of saving the shot is higher. Or if you want to preserve the most original detail. Cos with JPEG, some in-camera processing has already taken place.

shooting in JPEG is fine but ONLY after you have mastered your aperture and WB controls, and also reading histogram on how to identify overexposed, under, low key, high key, etc photos.

stick to Parameter 1 for walkaround shots, use 2 for portraits so that it doesn't make the subject's skin look like shiny plastic and instead apply a soft touch effect

I was fortunate to work with one professional wedding photographer for a day. He said dial the sharpness to the max, which is +4 because DSLR soften the picture automatically. After that, I use Unsharp Mask in CS Photoshop to make if further clearer, though not too extreme. The effecy is amazingly clear!

Professionals won't tell you much about PP, they'll tell you to use FILM