Camera RAW...Use it

I've been busy for a good few weeks now with Uni work, useless stuff that was getting in the way of my photography. So i haven't really had a chance to post anything or even upload any new pictures on Flickr until a few days ago.

But when i finally got back to it I looked at my photostream and was a bit disappointed. I've really enjoyed taking the photos that are there but they were miles away from being as good as other peoples I'd seen. I know I've only been doing it a few months but i wanted to start creating some really amazing stuff.

So i had a processing re-vamp. I'd heard of this Camera RAW software that comes with Photoshop, but all i have is the more simplified version that comes with Elements, so had never really given it much thought when the screen pops up for a RAW image file.

But after seeing a few video tutorials online and reading about how to use it properly i started to experiment with how you can process shots that aren't really that amazing to start with, but after a few tweaks look pretty decent.

I'm much happier with how my photos are looking now, learning what your software can do is so important. I'd say just Camera RAW alone is worth the £50 i splashed out on Elements.

Here's some of my most recent stuff...

My personal favourite

January and February

These are the first decent pictures i took with the Canon 500D in January and February, all taken with the 18-55 IS lens i discussed in the last post. Please comment and check out my other posts.

Lenses. Not a mug's game.

If, like me, you want to know a fair bit of detail about a product before you buy it then you research it before right? Is it reasonably priced? What's it got that other things haven't? Is it any good?

I'd pretty much decided on the camera i was going to get, the Canon 500D, otherwise known as the Rebel TL1 or the Kiss X3. Getting to grips with all the details and specifications about cameras had taken a while.  Lenses turned out to be just as complicated. What the hell is an f stop?! Surely a 5.6 is better than a 1.4, the bigger the number the better the thing surely? Nah. That'd be way too simple.

At first, being the naive photography newbie, my thoughts were something along these lines...

"Ahhh hell yeah i want that one, that's a beast!"

"Oh."

"Well this one is in my price range...

but its only £75! If its over £1500 less its got to be an absolutely awful lens, hasn't it? I might as well put a beer bottle on the camera." (This, the Canon EF 50mm 1.8 ii is actually a pretty decent, yet cheap lens)

Hmm, this lens business is confusing. So. Research. What makes a good lens? What would suit me? A half decent, not too pricey, all-round beginner's lens. Finding all this stuff out took me a good few hours. Without going into too much detail (maybe i'll post something that does soon), i got to know what makes a good lens and what i needed.

With nearly all new cameras you can buy, they're offered with a 'kit' lens. In the case of the 500D the kit lens on offer was the Canon EF-S 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 IS lens. Broken down all that spiel mean:

EF-S: the lens will fit cameras with both the EF and EF-S lens mounts, so can be used with more cameras than a lens for just EF mounts.

18-55mm: this is the lens' variable zoom focal length. Although it cannot really be classed as a zoom lens, the focal length can be adjusted. 18mm being its widest angle and 55mm being its furthest zoom.

3.5-5.6: this is the aperture range of the the lens at the respectable focal lengths.

IS: this stands for Image Stabilizer. With some brands of cameras the camera body has an in-built device that helps reduce camera shake when shooting. In the case of Canon (and Nikon), this technology is within the lens.

From what I'd found out about lenses, i knew that all this information wasn't anything to rave about. But it wasn't particularly bad either. I found some reviews online, and generally they were all fairly good. The main negatives mentioned were about the build quality and how fiddly the manual focus ring was to use. What i also found was that this lens was an upgrade from an older version that didn't feature the IS system. As well as including this useful system, reviewers who had used both lenses were extremely positive about how this new version had a much improved picture quality overall.

So here was a half decent, affordable (especially when bought as the kit) lens. Sorted.

This was around christmas time, and I'd seen all the deals online on, offering the camera and lens for about £20 cheaper than in the shops. But then i'd have to wait Christmas delivery times. And I'm impatient. So i took a trip to Curry's, who online had a good deal on the camera also.

So there i am, looking at the cameras, showing my interest and sure enough an overly friendly sales guy strolls over and asks how he can help. I explain what im looking for and eventually he goes to check if they have the 500D with the 18-55 IS in stock. They didn't. I've shortened what happened next...

Currys guy - "No we don't have the IS lens in stock. But we do have the 500D with the 18-55 non IS lens kit. I could do that for you cheap."

Me - "I think I'll leave it thanks mate, I'd rather have the IS."

Currys guy - "Na you don't need that, I'm a photographer myself, and it just so happens I've got both lenses. I find myself using the non IS one all the time, it takes much better pictures than the other."

Me (fairly amused) - "But isn't the IS version an upgrade from that one."

Currys guy - "No not at all, the IS version has the IS, but the non IS one has much better optics - (i bet he thought I'd be impressed by the words optics) - and i never get blurry pictures! I wouldn't get the IS. How about i do you a special deal? See how much my manager will let me take off?" (Please God keep your clothes on)

Me - "No thanks, I'll leave it."

So, after a very long winded post i draw two conclusions:

1. Never trust a guy who works on commission, always trust the research you do yourself. Just check as many different sources as you can and you'll be fine.

2. The 18-55 IS is a pretty decent lens that i was sure would be perfectly fine for a beginner like myself. And it is.

First Pictures

The camera arrived. My very own Canon 500d with kit lens. Now what? Errrrrrr..? Here's an example of one of the first pictures i took - 

Yup, my first attempt at a stock photography image was messing around with a Lego pirate and a toy fireman. Why i had them i don't know. Either way they were terrible. It wasn't that i was expecting super sharp, professional looking images, i just wasn't expecting them to look as bad as they did.

One of my justifications for buying the camera was the microstock photography market. Signing up to a site such as iStockPhoto who will sell your images very cheaply, royalty free and give you maybe around 40p per sale. I thought that maybe after a few weeks of getting to grips with the camera, i might be able to do exactly this, making a few quid a month to start replacing the hole in my funds.

A month after i got it, still hasn't happened.

I tried a few times to take a few "stock" style images with the typical bright white background, but without the right lighting this proved harder than i first thought. Even with the camera's white balance correctly set, getting a pure white background to look brilliant white with normal indoor lighting was tough. And at this stage i didn't even have any editing software to hep me  apart from some really basic free stuff such as Gimp and Picasa.

If stock photography wasn't going to work until i splashed out a few bob for some daylight lamps i figured that for the time being i would just experiment with some more creative stuff. At first i just tried out some indoor shots, self portraits and macro shots of household objects - 

Nothing majorly exciting but it gave me a good idea of how to use the camera more quickly and efficiently.

Next I'd venture outside.

Seeing a photo - Ordering the camera.

I've always enjoyed looking at photographs, appreciating what goes into taking a good one. Apart from messing around with point-and-shoot digitals though I'd never experienced photography for myself.

Around Christmas i was on the laptop, just randomly checking out some pictures on flickr when i stumbled across this, a picture by an amazing photographer named Trey Ratcliff, otherwise known as "Stuck in Customs". I think you'll agree how good it is.

It's a HDR photo, or High Dynamic Range. The way it looks like a painting is captured by combining photographs of the same scene but at different exposures. In other words, the same picture, taken several times at different levels of brightness. Combining these photos into one captures all the colours, highlights and lowlights from each and puts the into one picture. This particular picture was the first HDR to hang in the Smithsonian, and i don't even think it's his best.

But anyway. It inspired me to find out more about the technique, and photography in general. I spent weeks looking through blogs and tutorials all about different elements of photography; techniques, equipment, styles etc. I became totally engrossed by it all...

And blew over £500 on a half decent camera and basic equipment. Hmm. Impulsive? Yep. But i was sure i wanted to get into it.

I dont advise everyone to do this if they're thinking of getting into photography, use what you have available to you. And only splash out if you think its something you'll genuinely enjoy. Even if you can splash out like me, you'll soon find that £500 is nothing in photography terms. Fancy a middle of the range DSLR camera and a middle of the range lens? Bye bye £1500.

So i had my camera. I had some basic knowledge about what to do. Now i had to take some pictures.