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Using Auto to Learn Manual – A Great First Step for Beginners

Using Auto to Learn Manual – A Great First Step for Beginners: "

If you’re just learning photography and you feel that learning to use your DSLR camera on manual is too daunting, here’s a little tip I used when learning to think for my camera: let the auto settings guide you. By auto settings, I mean the ones where the settings are set for certain situations and you don’t have to do anything else. These include portrait, macro, sports, landscape, etc.

Take sports mode for instance. On a Canon 500d, the sport mode while I was indoors at the time was set at: f/3.5, 1/320th sec, auto ISO.

What can you learn from this? A fast shutter speed captures and freezes motion quickly. When I first was learning about why my camera used a smaller f/stop in sports mode, I was confused. Landscape mode used high f/stops (exe: f/11). And when doing sports photography, aren’t you taking photos from far away just like you are with a landscape? I was even more confused when the f/stop on the sports mode was the same as on the macro mode for taking super close-ups. Why the low aperture? Remember, the lower the number, the more open which means more light getting to your sensor. A super-fast shutter is essential to freeze motion but the faster the shutter, the less light is getting in. So you compensate by opening up your aperture.

If you’re using sports mode and the shutter still isn’t quick enough to freeze the action, you now have a starting point to go into manual and apply the same settings you saw in sport mode, but this time, speed up the shutter a bit. You might have to then adjust the aperture or ISO to make up for less light being let in by the sensor, but this will help you learn without feeling the pressure of not knowing where to begin.

You could even give yourself a challenge to take one setting per week or month and really delve into learning everything you can about why they are set in that way. Before you know it, you’ll be shooting in manual and thinking for your camera like a pro!

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Using Auto to Learn Manual – A Great First Step for Beginners

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Nikon D40 – Modern Classic [REVIEW]

Nikon D40 – Modern Classic [REVIEW]: "

40 Reasons why you don’t need 18mp

In February 2010, Canon released the EOS 550D with an 18 megapixel sensor, HD video and a $900 price tag. Will Canon tell the folks lining up to buy this camera how much extra work it will add to their simple lives? And how much pain it will bring to their photo hobby? Not likely.

The Nikon D40 was released late in 2006 and remained on the market until late 2009. Three years in production is a long time in the land of digital, where 18 months is about the average life of a camera body. What was so special about the D40? For once, there’s a simple answer: the D40 set a new standard for entry-level DSLRs in terms of size, cost, build quality and performance.

In a nutshell, the D40 was affordable, weighs less than 500g and can make great photos. Build quality is better than you’d expect from an all-plastic body and a dinky 18-55mm kit lens – after two years and 50,000 shutter actuations, there isn’t a scratch on my D40’s body or the LCD, and everything still works with crisp enthusiasm.

D40, D59, D80 size comparison. Photo courtesy of Thom Hogan http://www.bythom.com/D40REVIEW.htm

Nikon D40 Features

I bought the D40 when it was already obsolete, just after the D60 was released. The speeds and feeds were never much to drool over and now look decidedly crude:

• 6 megapixel DX format CCD (1.5x FOV crop, as D50)
• 3D Color Matrix Metering II, 420 pixel sensor (as D80 / D50)
• ISO sensitivity range 200 – 1600 plus HI 1 (3200 equiv.)
• Custom Auto ISO (selectable maximum ISO, minimum shutter speed)
• 2.5 fps continuous shooting (as D50), unlimited in JPEG
• Large 2.5″ 230,000 pixel LCD monitor
• Viewfinder with x0.8 magnification, 95% coverage
• Support for SDHC (SD cards over 2 GB in capacity)

Nikon D40 Lens Options

The D40 achieves its compact size by doing away with the focusing motor that graced the D50, D70 and D80 (and graces the current D90). That means you’re limited to lenses in Nikon’s AF-S and Sigma’s HSM line if you want auto-focus. If you don’t mind doing everything yourself, as we used to a few decades back, you can mount any Nikkor lens on the D40.

The more recent AF Nikkor lenses will meter okay and give you a focus dot in the bottom left of the viewfinder. There’s no anti-shake (Vibration Reduction) technology in the body either, but Nikon has been building VR into most of its lenses for years. Even the cheap 18-55 and 55-200 kit lenses have VR, and they’re the lenses you’ll use most of the time. Yes, they’re cheap and they look it and feel it but Nikon is good at making great lenses at the plasticky bottom end of the price scale. The new 35mm f/1.8 prime follows that tradition.

If you want to go beyond 200mm, there’s a cheap 70-300 option without VR or a more pricey AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor ED 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF option. There’s a Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG APO Macro, which is less than $300, auto-focuses on the D40 and is as sharp as a tack but has no VR.

A word of caution: these are full-frame (FX) lenses so they’re equivalent to 105 – 450 mm on APS-C sensor (DX) cameras like the D40, D90 and D300 due to the 1.5x crop factor.

Navigation

The D40 body has very few buttons and knobs to confuse the unwary, and it does without the small LCD that sits atop older and bigger Nikons. The dial that takes the LCD’s place has the usual MASP modes, plus Auto and a few scene modes I never use.

The main screen gives you all the settings you’re most likely to need in a single window you can navigate and dig into. Nikon is well-known for its standard-setting ergonomics, and deservedly so. The rest of the menus are almost as easy to get around. You can check them in detail here.

Handling & Performance

This is one of those rare pieces of equipment where everything just falls to hand, and nothing gets in the way. Intuitive is the word that comes to mind – taking photos is point & shoot easy but a hell of lot quicker. You turn the D40 on and it’s on, bang, just like that. You focus, press the button and it shoots. And it’s ready to shoot again. Even when you’re using flash, there’s little of the frustrating lag you get with digicams.

The D40 is always ready to catch the action with kids, pets or sports. Continuous shooting is only 2.5 frames a second but, if you’re shooting JPEGs, the D40 will keep going until the battery runs out. It helps to use a fast flash card, of course. I’ve never come near filling up the 4GB card I use, even shooting RAW + JPEG, and the battery is good for about 500 shots.

The Nikon D40 is all about light and easy, so it comes as a surprise that it’s one of the few DSLRs on the market that supports flash synch speeds of up to 1/500 sec. Why is this important, you ask. One answer is that you need to shoot at 1/500 or faster to freeze action so, if you want to shoot your kids doing crazy things, faster is better. What if the sun’s bright enough for 1/500 without flash? The problem is that you’ll get harsh contrasts, that’s why you see a flash atop every wedding photographers’ camera. ‘Fill flash’ softens harsh sunlight and is essential when you’re shooting against the sun.

The other reason why 1/500 synch speed is useful is that faster synch speeds let you shoot at larger apertures, which gives you more depth-of-field potential, requires less flash power, lets your flash recycle faster and lets you shoot more frames per second.

Larger apertures also let in more light from the flash which allows you to get further away from the subject. For a two stop increase (from 1/125 to 1/500 for example) you effectively double your maximum flash range. It also means you can make do with a cheaper flash unit, like the compact $150 Nikon SB-400. Read more about it here.

With the D40, even the image files are easy to handle: JPEGs are about 2-3mb and RAW files tend to be around 5. RAW + JPEG is a practical option with the D40, and the combined file size is just under 6mb. That’s one third the size of the Canon EOS 550D’s 18mp files.

Image Quality

The sensor in the D40 is the same 6mp CCD Nikon used in the D50 and D70s. Less than 6 months after the D40’s release, Nikon announced the D40x which borrowed the 10mp sensor from the D80. The reason? Competitors were pushing up the pixel ratings on their cameras, making buyers think 6mp wasn’t nearly enough. That’s rubbish. At 100%, a full size JPEG from the D40 is almost 90 cm wide, much too wide for my 24” screen.

The textbooks say that the D40’s 3008 x 2000 pixel images will let you print up to 30 x 20 cm (12 x 8”). Don’t believe any of it – I have a number of 75 x 50 cm prints from the D40, and they don’t lack detail. If you don’t believe me, different megapixel prints are put to a very public test here.

How good is the sensor?

Resolution (pixel count) by itself doesn’t equate to sharpness. Image sharpness is more to do with the lens you’re using, your shooting technique, and how steady your hand or tripod is. Image quality overall has a lot do with the sensor in your camera.

DxO labs publishes ratings for digital camera sensors using DxOMark, a new scale for measuring RAW digital camera image quality performance.

Let’s come back to the Canon 550D we started with, and do some comparisons:

Comparing the Nikon D40 with the Canon 550D shows us that, no matter how huge the gap in specs, the actual difference is remarkably small. In terms of colour depth and dynamic range, there not much in it but the Canon’s low-light performance is clearly a step ahead of the D40.

When we compare the D40 to Canon’s 15mp Powershot G10 (last year’s pocket wunderkind), we see that the biggest gain in image quality is seen when going from a digicam to a DSLR.

G10 (15mp) G11/S90 (10mp)

DxOMark Sensor 37.8 46.5

Colour Depth 19.5 20.2

Dynamic Range 10 11

Low-light ISO 157 185

I copied the DxOMark for the G11/S90 to show that Canon saw the light on megapixels with its digicams late last year, settling for 10mp sensors in the G11 and S90. Why Canon’s DSLR division hasn’t done the same is puzzling.

The Nikon D40 is not perfect

It uses the sensor from the older D50/D70s, while the D40x uses the D80’s 10mp sensor. The D5000 uses the new generation sensor from the D90. The improvement is less to do with the 12 megapixels and more with Nikon getting better at sensor design and image processing.

I’ve used a friend’s D90 and it does produce more detailed images, and cleaner ones in low light situations. It also has three times as many settings to waste time with because 98% of them are just techno-clutter (the user manual is several hundred pages long). If only they’d make a version of this sensor with 6 or 8mp – it’s low-light performance should rival that of a D700.

What about live view and video?

Live view is as yet a clunky affair on DSLRs but I admit that there are situations where I’d like the flip-out viewfinder from the D5000. Video? It holds no interest for me, and Thom Hogan calls Nikon’s DSLR video ‘toy video’. Canon is probably ahead on that score.

The dark side of megapixels

I might buy a Nikon D90/D5000 for the sensor, not for the extra pixels. All the files are twice as big, and your PC will be slow to open the RAW files. Imagine what happens with 18 megapixels: your PCs knees will buckle unless you have a serious graphics processor in it. Remember, the ability to record quality RAW files is one of the key reasons for lugging a DSLR around.

The Canon’s RAW files will be around 25mb in size, and bigger if you shoot RAW and JPEG like most of us. Suddenly your PC is too slow, your flash card too small, your back-up drive too cramped and backups take forever. Unless you have a hot-shoe 4-cpu rig with a potent graphics card, editing RAW files will be painful. And what can you actually do with those extra pixels and those huge files? Print wallpaper for your lounge room? My bet is you’ll soon choose medium or small JPEG files on the shooting menu.

Small is beautiful. The D40 is light, easy and quick to start, focus and shoot. You can chuck it into the back seat of your car and it doesn’t mind. It has all the essentials except for DOF preview and a motor drive for older lenses, and it has very few features you don’t need. You can buy a refurbished one with kit lens for <$400. What more can you ask for? Check the photos galleries in my blog, and you’ll see why I love my D40.

Get a price on the Nikon D40 at Amazon

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Nikon D40 – Modern Classic [REVIEW]

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Samsung ST550 Review

Samsung ST550 Review: "

There have been touch screen cameras and camcorders before but none has approached the level and elegance of control of the Samsung ST550. In many ways, the camera parallels the touch experience of Apple’s iPhone and iPod devices. And that’s saying something!

Confession: I’ve never been a great fan of touch screens before, finding them confusing, hesitant and a little challenging. But this time Samsung has done it right. If your experience follows mine you’ll find yourself playing for hours with the screen, exploring its nooks and crannies.

It goes further: the camera captures 12.2 megapixel pictures, its maximum image size of 4000×3000 pixels is enough to make a sharp 34×25cm print. Movies have an HD res of 1280×720 at 15/30/60fps.

The lens has been designed by German optical company Schneider, offering a 4x zoom range that equates (as a 35 SLR) to 27-124.2mm. The lens is a little ‘slow’ with an f3.5 maximum aperture, so for low light photography you’ll have to rely on a slower shutter speed or lift the ISO setting.

Ok at ISO 80.

On the borderline at ISO 800, getting noisier.

Not a good look at ISO 1600

Well over the hill at ISO 3200, with noise, colour artefacts and lowered resolution.

Choose a higher ISO speed? A little touchy, as my ISO test shots reveal that when the camera is set to ISO 800 and higher the shots are virtually unusable, due to the lack of definition, noise and general blockiness of the image. So the f3.5 maximum lens aperture is a problem.

The camera offers only auto or Program AE exposure options, so choosing a specific shutter speed is out of the question.

However, the ST550 is a great snapshot camera, easy to use and what is even more delightful is the second screen (a small 3.8cm LCD panel) mounted on the front panel of the camera. Now you can shoot people and let them see how they look before you snap the shutter. What an innovation!

Delightfully, you activate the screen by tapping on the camera’s front surface, left of the lens. Note: I said tapping — not touching. This is a clever camera.

The only trick with this I discovered is that it’s better to step back from the subject and zoom the lens out to the tele end. The reason? If you shoot people close up as they look at the panel, their eyeline is off to the right of frame — a dodgy look!

The main screen is a 7.6cm LCD of high resolution — more than a million pixels! It’s ideal to assess image sharpness before you shoot and large enough to accommodate the various menu icons sprinkled around its borders. There is no optical viewfinder.

Getting around the menu was easy: I was surprised at how simple it was to select the various metering modes, auto focus options, image size, etc. If you think I’m sold on the touch screen system … you’re right! Far, far better than dithering around a screen menu and whiddling with various knobs and dials to get where you want.

And … each time you make a selection the screen vibrates! Samsung calls it a haptic vibration effect. The word haptic refers to touch …that’s all. But the effect is really cool!

Then the thought occurs to me: why didn’t those clever South Korean camera designers take the ultimate step and give you zoom lens control via the screen — à la the iPhone/iPod? Next model, please?

There’s more: tilt the ST550 to one side, and the camera starts the slide show; in Smart Auto the adjusts settings for the optimum shot; by recognising up to 20 familiar faces, it sets focuses on them; a helpful touch is the Recycle Bin, where every shot is stored in a temporary folder just in case you accidentally erase the main memory. Got me!

Distortion

A good performer: no problems at the zoom’s wide end but a tiny amount of pincushion distortion at the tele end.

Startup Time

Not the fastest: two seconds from power up to first shot, follow-ons about two seconds each.

Comment

Quality: average snapshot quality, not too good in the dark, prefers bright sunny days!

Why you’d buy the ST550: twin LCD views, slim profile.

Why you wouldn’t: no optical finder, slow lens.

Samsung ST550 Specs

Image Sensor: 12.2 million effective pixels. Sensor Size: 8mm CCD. Lens: Schneider-Kreuznach f3.5/5.9/4.9-22.5mm (27-124.2mm as 35 SLR equivalent). Shutter Speed: 8 to 1/2000 second. Focusing Range: Normal 80cm to infinity; macro W/T 5/50cm to infinity. Exposure Control: Auto, Program AE. Metering: Multi zone, centre-weighted; spot. LCD screens: Rear 7.6cm (1,152,000 pixels); front 3.8cm (61,000 pixels). Memory: microSD, 55MB internal memory. Image Size (pixels): 4000×3000, 3894×2656, 3840×2160, 3264×2448, 2560×1920, 2048×1536, 1920×1080, 1024×768. Video: 1280×720, 640×480, 320×240 at 15/30/60fps. File Formats: JPEG, MPEG4, AAC. ISO Sensitivity: Auto, 80 to 3200. Interface: USB 2.0, AV (PAL/NTSC), HDMI, DC input. Power: Rechargeable lithium ion battery. Dimensions: 99.8×59.8×18.6WHDmm. Weight: Approx. 165.7 g (body only).

Get a Price on the Samsung ST550 at Amazon.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

Samsung ST550 Review

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11 Tips for Band Promotional Photography

11 Tips for Band Promotional Photography: "

In this post Tom Di Maggio Photography shares 11 tips for taking band promotional photography.

Knowing your gear and how to achieve a correct exposure is the basis for every picture you take, no matter what kind of photography we are talking about. When it comes to band promotional photography, it is but a small part of the equation.

There’s a lot of factors that you need to take into consideration in order to get the pictures that you want. 80% of the work is done during the preparation of the shoot. The better the preparation the smoother everything will work out on the day of the shoot. The following tips are not about what gear to use, or what settings are better suited, but rather about organization and how to use the available time in a most effective way as to get the best possible pictures and still have fun during the process.

1. Meet the band and get a feeling for their music. Ideally get them to let you shoot one of their performances and meet them after they’ve seen your pictures. Use this meeting to identify the style of pictures they want to go for and what they will be using the pictures for. You’ll have to consider space in the composition for text or other things if the pictures are being used on the web or as a cd cover.

2. Location scouting is very important, but very time consuming as well. Don’t be afraid to ask the band if they have a location in mind, ask your friends and family as well. You never know. I often use bars, restaurants or even concert venues for the photo sessions. Just make sure you always ask for permission.

3. Once you found the location take some snapshots, preferably at the same time of the day as the shoot will take place and from as many angles as you can. You will have to use these in order to prepare the lighting setup for the shoot. It is very important that you know which pictures that you want to take and thus where you are going to put your strobes before you arrive at the location on the day of the shoot. There probably won’t be enough time to improvise and it will look as though you’re not really sure about what you’re doing, the band will become insecure and it will have an impact on the end result.

4. Small but important details are the clothes worn by the band members. Try to get them to match the location and the style of the shoot. In some situation you might want to go the absolute opposite way, but it has to fit the purpose.

5. Make a list of pictures that you’d like to have at the end of the session. Be realistic here, there’s no point in trying to fit 10 different sets into 60 minutes. You’d rather have a few sets that are well executed and some time left for improvisation than hurrying through your sets and missing some important issues with the lighting or positioning of the band.

6. Once everything is sorted out in terms of photo sets meet the band again and explain in detail what will happen on the day of the shoot. The more they know what they’ll have to do the less explanation you’ll have to do on site, which will leave you more time for the actual picture taking.

7. If you are on a strict time schedule (because of the location or the band) make sure you meet a bit before the starting time. You can use the time to make last minute adjustments, but try to avoid big changes at that time, it could get out of hands very quickly. You have to find the right balance between being flexible and being strict enough to follow the list of pictures you want to take.

8. When you are shooting, always be on the lookout for nice opportunities between the sets, if the group is small enough you might get some keepers from these shots. A second shooter would come in handy here.

9. It’s not a must but usually having some people there to help you with the coordination for the shoot. If you only have an hour you’ll need every minute to make the most out of it. Again if you’re tight on budget ask friends and family. Don’t forget to thank them in an appropriate way ;)

10. The next two are not really about the photo session itself, but I feel it’s important that I share my point of view on these topics. It’s about the never ending argument: to photoshop or not. For me the post processing is a part of the creative aspect of photography, usually I know precisely how the finished product should look like and more often than not this includes post processing. That doesn’t mean that every picture should be heavily post processed. It should be used in a creative way and not to correct mistakes that could have been prevented in-camera.

11. Make sure that you only show a very strict selection to the band. Select your best 10 pictures and show them. There’s no point in showing 60 pictures, they will be surprised by the amount of pictures and this will affect their perception of your work. That being said there’s no harm in sending them a DVD or CD with the other 60 pictures at a later point in time.

See more of Tom Di Maggio’s work at Tom Di Maggio Photography, InFocus Photography and on his Flickr Account.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

11 Tips for Band Promotional Photography

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CANON EOS 2Ti/550 REVIEW (Draft)

CANON EOS 2Ti/550 REVIEW (Draft): "

Background

With entry-level DSLRs, Canon has long walked a path of gradual development. When a new model pops out of the factory, the model it replaces stays in the catalogue but is sold at a lower price. It’s smart marketing.

Canon pitches the 550D at the top end of its Entry Level DSLR group, which stacks up like this (basic kit lens, US $):

550D $900 18mp

500D $800 15mp

450D $650 12mp

1000D $550 10mp

It’s a nice, logical spread of products, more so than Nikon’s 3 models and two sensor sizes. As I said: smart marketing. Predictably, the 550D borrows much from the 500D it one-ups. And just as predictably, it fires a second torpedo across the bow of the good ship Nikon whose D90 has reigned supreme in the <$1,000 DSLR market for 18 months. The first one was the 500D, and it didn’t really connect.

Value Proposition

Canon sums it up like this: Creative control with no compromise on quality.

The press release elaborates: ‘The EOS 550D redefines the boundaries of Canon’s consumer DSLR range, incorporating technologies and features more commonly found in semi-professional DSLRs into the compact, lightweight body favoured by consumers. With a newly-developed 18 Megapixel (MP) APS-C CMOS sensor, coupled with Canon’s advanced DIGIC 4 image processor and the ability to shoot Full HD movies, photography enthusiasts are empowered to explore new levels of creativity.’

What Canon did was to reach into the parts bin and put the 18mp sensor from its semi-pro 7D (with a couple of corners cut) into an entry-level body. Other features that come with the 7D sensor is an ISO range of 100 – 6400, 14-bit image processing for smoother tonal gradation and advanced iFCL exposure metering with 63-zone dual-layer sensor. And the cherry on the grapefruit: full HD video recording with selectable frame rates, manual control and support for an external stereo microphone.

Amazing Results, No Matter the Light. It’s a bold claim, as we’ll see. First, I have a simple question: who needs 18 megapixels in an entry level camera? Just processing RAW images from a sensor that big on an ordinary PC is arduous task. Files are 25 – 30 mb each. The obvious answer is that Canon thinks that more pixels is what most of us want. Are we that gullible? I think it’s more likely boys with their toys stuff, Canon flexing its technology muscles at Nikon, ‘look at me, look at me …’

Sense and Sensors

Canon says its new gapless microlens design made it possible to raise the pixel count to 18mp while also raising the 550D’s high ISO capacity. The pixel density is 5.5MP / cm² compared to the Nikon D90’s 3.3MP / cm², and the Canon sensor has a smaller area as well (328 vs 370mm?). The 550D sensor isn’t in quite up there with Nikon’s in DxOMark ratings http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Image-Quality-Database but it isn’t that far behind, so there’s some truth in Canon’s PR.

Source: Canon

Build Quality and Handling

So the 550D is a 7D without the fast burst mode, the tough body and the dust sealing, but it’s well-enough built with polycarbonate over a stainless steel frame. The body is compact, no bigger or heavier than the Pentax K-x I tested last month, and just as black. The matt plastic looks classy and the body feels good in the hand. Rubberised patches on the handgrip front and back make sure your fingers don’t slip. The bright 3” 3:2 format LCD monitor with 1 million dot resolution is a beauty.

The test camera came with the 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens, which looks more plasticky than its $500 price tag suggests. It’s also 50% longer than equivalent lenses from other makers, and a bit bulky for a walkabout lens. Worse, when you walk about, the inner tube droops, at least on this sample. It doesn’t have a USM AF motor and, at 50mm, f/5 is as open as it gets so it’s not that fast across the zoom range.

Menus and modes

The layout of basic controls is pretty logical. The main differences from the Pentax or Nikon layouts are:

• an on-off button next to the mode dial
• an upright wheel for changing shutter speed, aperture and so on
• A dedicated ISO button between the wheel and the mode dial
• A Quickview button for quick access to the main settings

Navigation is pretty straightforward but I’m puzzled by the Quick View button. It gives you quick access to settings like flash compensation, white balance correction and image quality, but it also covers ISO setting, exposure control, focus mode, white balance and picture style, but these already have dedicated buttons on the 4-way control and the camera body. Canon could’ve provided access to other functions instead.

Viewfinder

The 550D’s viewfinder feels a touch cramped next to the Nikon D90’s but looks generous compared to the D5000. It covers 95% of the scene with 0.87x magnification, and it’s bright with very clear numbers on the bottom row. The penta-prism of the Nikon D90 is an advantage when composing shots carefully and focusing manually, but I have a feeling that this isn’t the kind of shooter the 550D is aimed at.

Creative Options

That becomes obvious when you probe more deeply into the treasure chest of facilities. Alongside the usual PASM and scene modes, we have CA and A-DEP modes. CA stands for Creative Auto, which lets you adjust an on-screen slider to choose how much blur you want in the background of your subject. A second slider lets you adjust exposure compensation.

The touch-screen style composition makes getting the desired depth-of-field a doddle, while the A-DEP option simply adjusts the aperture in the opposite direction so that everything in the photo is sharp from front to back.

The CA mode also gives you quick access to the 550D’s image effects, like smooth skin tones for portraits or vivid blues and greens that will spice up landscape shots. Again, these picture styles have a dedicated button on the 4-way control. For adjusting contrast, saturation, colour tone within these styles, a trip to the menu is required.

Canon Can

Options for more demanding users include Auto Exposure Bracketing and White Balance Auto Bracketing. Canon also adds Auto Lighting Optimiser, Highlight Tone Priority and Lens Peripheral Illumination Correction, which work their magic on photos to fix any blemishes before they come out of the camera. Canon is pushing technology hard and here is the low-down on ‘how-do-we-do-it?’ http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=MultiMiscPageAct&key=EOS_Advantage_IQ&fcategoryid=139

Performance

The proof is in the eating, they say, and lovely photos came out of the 550D from the moment I started shooting. I was struck by colours that are very accurately rendered and excellent sharpness, from close-ups to landscapes. This is clearly a competent camera, with fast autofocus, crisp shutter action, spot-on metering in most situations and natural transitions in high contrast scenes. This is an easy camera to use and to like. It even cleans the sensor for you every time you turn it off.

The lens turns out to be very capable of resolving all the detail the 18mp sensor collects. Canon claims that the Image Stabilisation built into this lens provides four f-stops of shutter speed advantage. That’s a big claim and I have enough shaky shots to make me doubt it, but they’re in the minority overall.

The only real stumbling block was RAW – none of my RAW converters had yet learned about the new Canon 550D files, which meant I had to install the one Canon supplied with the camera. In the end I decided I didn’t really need to learn yet another RAW converter, and the RAW + JPEG files I shot were around 30mb in size, which is ridiculous for anything but professional purposes IMHO. Therefore I settled on the finer of the two 8mb JPEG settings on the menu. The shots were as sharp as ever, only more manageable.

Low-light Shooting

I’d looked forward to testing the 550D in poor light, and it is competent here if not as good as Canon claims. Shots taken at 1600 are clear and clean, shots taken at ISO 3200 are acceptable but I’d leave 6400 for emergencies and forget about 12,800.

I’ve put more high ISO shots (and others) in the 550D photo gallery on my blog http://briard.typepad.com/get_the_picture/canon-eos-550d-gallery.html

The low-light performance of the 550D is comparable to that of the Pentax K-x and Nikon D90/D5000. Nikon has a slight edge in DxOMark performance but that’s less obvious in the real world.

The Canon has a slight edge in colour rendering, to my eye at least. On the ‘Faithful’ setting (don’t you love it?), the D550 does a minimum of in-camera processing and the colours that come out of it are very natural.

Live View and Movie modes

The same button next to the viewfinder activates either, depending on the mode dial. Live View has the same problems with slow focus as its competitors, and an articulated screen would be nice to have for both these functions. Canon puts those on digicams, so it’s hard to understand why it’s missing here especially for video capture. The 550D’s video is now true HD format, has user selectable frame rates and provides control over apertures and shutter speeds.

Using it is easy as pie: Switch to movie mode, focus and press the liveview/movie button to start recording video. Pressing the shutter button while you are recording a video will stop the video and record a stills image. Check this site for some examples http://www.outbackphoto.com/CONTENT_2007_01/section_gear_cameras_2010/20100306_Canon_550D/index.html

Image Quality

On the whole, the 550D’s image quality is excellent, and it’s comparable to the Nikon D90’s output while providing much more resolution. I’m not sure what the average user would do with that much of a good thing, and I find the 18 megapixel sensor puzzling given Canon’s bold turnaround with their latest digicams.

18 months ago, Canon was leading the megapixel charge with the G10, which boasted 15mp. Then late last year, the G11 and S90 surprised the market with a 10mp sensor. Less of a surprise was that these cameras delivered improved image quality, less noise and better low light performance. So how come Canon’s DSLR division didn’t follow the same logic?

The DxOMark data show that the 550D is not quite of there with the D90, and in fact not that far ahead of the 3-year old 10mp Canon 40D. That makes me wonder if Canon couldn’t have produced a D90-beating sensor if it’d settled for 12 megapixels.

Verdict

Does Canon have a winner? Yes. The market Canon is targeting with the Rebel T2i / EOS 550D is the buyer who wants quality equipment but doesn’t get carried away with the finer points and the creative possibilities they offer. Think of this camera as a serious point-and-shoot machine with a lot of clever automation. This line isn’t meant as a put down to 550D buyers – I suspect a lot of sub-thousand dollar DSLRs are used in Auto mode these days, with a single 18–200 lens on the front.

The upside is that cameras like this make it easier for more people to take better photos, the downside is that refinements like those served up by the 550D will do away with the need to learn the basic principles of photography. Sure, you could argue that that’s been happening since the Kodak Instamatic saw the light of day.

The reality is that the DSLR market is under pressure from pumped-up digicams, and DSLR vendors have to make their low-end models more feature-rich yet easier to use. Nikon is heading the same way as Canon with the D3000 and D5000.

For advanced users who buy the 550D for what it is capable of, Canon has provided more than enough control, so the camera can serve two different masters. In other words, a keen shooter and a partner who’s an occasional shooter can happily share the same camera. The 550D really is as easy as you want to make it. I find some of the operational duplication distracting but others might see extra convenience in it.

Competition

550D vs Nikon D90

The Nikon D90 is due for a major upgrade or replacement later this year. Right now, the 550D has more pixels, more automated shooting options for novices, 14-bit colour processing, a higher on-paper ISO option (12,800 vs 6,400), better live-view and better video facilities.

The Nikon D90 has the better viewfinder, better sensor, slightly better ergonomics, an LCD on top of the body, and Active D-Lighting said to more effective than Canon’s Lighting Optimiser. If you’re not a novice and mainly shoot stills, the decision will be tough but the Nikon may win. If you shoot a lot of video, then the Canon will be it.

550D vs the rest

The 550D and D90 are about the same price – $900. You could save $150 and settle for a Nikon D5000. You’d lose the big penta-mirror viewfinder but keep the D90 sensor and gain an articulated screen. Or you can save nearly $300 and buy a Pentax K-x, which uses the same sensor as the D90 (I’m told), is well-built, comes loaded with features but misses out on a few conveniences.

You could also opt for the cheaper Canon 500D. If you already own one, the 550D probably doesn’t have enough extras to make you want to change over. In fact, the 550D is being squeezed by siblings on both sides. The price of the semi-professional 50D has dropped to – you guessed it – $900 (body only). It’s an older model but comes with a magnesium alloy shell, a bigger penta-prism viewfinder, 6.3fps continuous shooting, an upper LCD information screen and more. What the 50D doesn’t have is video of any kind.

Summary

The competitive picture above is merely a snapshot in time. The current $900 price tag for the 550D may seem a bit steep, but the street price will drop over time. It’s not surprising that the 50D has dropped so much since it’s about to be replaced, and it’s telling that the Nikon D90 price has held rock-steady for 18 months. Nikon may not be in such a hurry to replace it but, when it does, you can rest assured that Canon will have a countermove already in the pipeline. Meanwhile, the EOS 550D is a highly competent and desirable camera.

A word on my methodology

I don’t test or review cameras the way DP Review or Steve’s Digicams do. I test cameras as a user, and that means I look for good design, ease of use and logical operation and navigation. Good design is about a great user experience, something very few companies are good at. Here’s a piece of my mind on the subject http://www.technoledge.com.au/pdfs/user-experience.pdf

Additional Resources

If you want all the gory details, look no further than DPReview

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos550d/page29.asp

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Canon_EOS_550D_Rebel_T2i/noise_JPEG.shtml

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/eos_rebel_t2i-review

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

CANON EOS 2Ti/550 REVIEW (Draft)

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