koffiejunkie's new camera

[bwana]

It's a stupid thing on Canon cameras AFAIK (even though Koffie loves it ). In Av, the camera tries to set the exposure for the background. From 40d's manual:



To get around this, I always use M for flash photography.

Have you tried changing the Flash sync speed for Av from Auto to fixed 1/200?

EDIT or just shooting P when using the flash?

A nice article on Canon and flash - http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

 

[koffiejunkie]

What Big-Al said. It does fill-flash in the creative modes.

Big-Al, I prefer that to the G9's method, i.e. expose for the whole scene, ignoring the fact that the flash will fire, and then giving full blast flash.

 

[BigAl-sa]

Have you tried changing the Flash sync speed for Av from Auto to fixed 1/200?

Sometimes, you need to be lower (or higher) than 1/200s (1/250s on xxD or xD bodies), to get the exposure right for the aperture you want to use.

EDIT or just shooting P when using the flash?

P = 1/60s - too slow for my shaky old hands

 

[bwana]

Sometimes, you need to be lower (or higher) than 1/200s (1/250s on xxD or xD bodies), to get the exposure right for the aperture you want to use.

P = 1/60s - too slow for my shaky old hands

P = minimum of 1/60.

 

[koffiejunkie]

I have hardly had time to spend with the camera, but I'm fighting a flu and staying home today, so I managed to play around a bit. Check this:


50mm, f/11, 1/13s, ISO12800, JPEG, standard NR.

For normal snapshot sharing, this is completely acceptable. I have no idea what causes the weird blotchy pattern on the green - it's the only surface I notice it on and I see it in the RAW too. Maybe something to do with the coatings on the cardboard?

I'll combine some 10% crops later for a nice overview of how the output differs at different ISO and NR settings.

 

[koffiejunkie]

I'm amused. I had two back to back events this weekend - as a guest, but of course with my camera. The first was a braai outside. It's still light but I used fill flash (with the pop-up) through-out. The second was a colleagues b-day last night. All of it was done with the pop-up flash. Camera in M with a reasonable shutter speed, 1/60-1/80 mostly, some a big higher, Auto-ISO and aperture generally as wide as the 18-200 will go, stopping down only when I know I'll need the DOF. So the flash is fill too.

On frame 1134 I ran out of battery, and the flash stopped working. I got some more shots with higher ISO and no flash - 6400 came in handy and NN is coping nicely with it.

It got me thinking:

1. When I got the camera, I charged both batteries. I used up the first one some time ago, and this is my backup. First charge. Give how much flash I've used, that's pretty nice.

Anyone know which tags in the EXIF data indicate flash power?

2. There's more to the high-iso/noise performance of this camera. I'm getting inconsistent results. For example, I'll get one well and evenly exposed image at 800 ISO that has a lot of chroma noise, and another with the same shutter speed, but at 1600 or 3200 with almost no noise at all. I'm talking about the RAW images, of course. The JPEGs all look good from the noise perspective. I guess there must be more factors that I don't know of.

3. The 50D's sensor definitely has better dynamic range than the 40D had. I'm getting much better results with the highlights and shadows sliders in Aperture.

4. I need to get the 17-55mm f/2.8 for stuff like this.