Photo advice

[luvtohnt]

Here are a couple of pictures that I took with my new camera (Canon T3i), please critique so I can improve. I only have the Canon editing software right now, so my editing abilities are limited. Photography has always interested me, and I can see how it will become addicting!!

Brandon

[huntnphool]

Resize them for the web to 800 pixel on the long side maximum.

[Bean Counter]

What lenses are in your lineup?

[JohnVH]

things that make photo's POP, object in focus, show Depth Of Field, contrast, object placement (rule of 3rds and such), color.

Things that make pictures suck: fuzzy, no DOF, too much grain from dark conditions or having the ISO too high.

[luvtohnt]

Resize them for the web to 800 pixel on the long side maximum.

Resized

What lenses are in your lineup?

Not much yet, I got the kit from Costco so it came with a EF-S18-55/3.5-5.6 IS II and the EF-S55-250/4-5.6 IS II. I haven't tried the big lens yet still trying to get used to the feel of the camera, it is much larger than the old point and shoot!

Brandon

[hunting4sanity]

I wish I was good enough to offer some breakthrough advice, but I'm searching for that myself.  It is a great hobby, shoot lots of photos, but delete lots as well.  My computer is flooded with pics of the kids, etc. because I don't delete enough.  How can you delete pics of your own kids? (that's my weakness)  Shoot a lot trying different camera modes.  Learn how to make your camera have shallow or extended depth of field. Look at photographs that catch your attention from other people, then try to duplicate something similar.  Just have fun.

[Johnb317]

Learn about shutter speeds and aperture.
Shoot in RAW
Good software. Lightroom   Or Elements

Have fun

[Bean Counter]

What lenses are in your lineup?

Not much yet, I got the kit from Costco so it came with a EF-S18-55/3.5-5.6 IS II and the EF-S55-250/4-5.6 IS II. I haven't tried the big lens yet still trying to get used to the feel of the camera, it is much larger than the old point and shoot!

Brandon

I'm still an amatuer myself so if one the pros (Huntnphool, Bone, etc) says otherwise, take what they  said and run with it.

This is book was for sale at Costco last year: http://www.magbooks.com/mag-books/digital-photography/getting-started-in-digital-photography-2nd-edition It is the best $12 I've ever spent on a magazine. Little if any junk ads and topic after topic of important concepts along with photographic examples.  I would buy it. now. NOW. NOW!

No other lens has allowed me to experiment and learn more than the Canon EF 50mm F/1.8. Its only $50-100 used, and the best lens for a beginner to have, IMHO. You may have noticed with your "kit" lenses that its difficult to snap photos of your kids moving around and that this is frustrating since your lens is supposed to be "image stabilized." That's because the lens only stabilizes your movements, not your subjects. When you need to use a faster shutter speed in low light and don't want to wash it out with a flash, you need the larger aperture that a lens like the 50mm f/1.8 can offer. That is why it is called a 'fast' lens. Again, the Magbook will explain all of this.

Another great resource is Ken Rockwell's site. He has written stuff on just about everything photography. He is a pimp with a camera, IMHO. www.kenrockwell.com.

I wish I was good enough to offer some breakthrough advice, but I'm searching for that myself.  It is a great hobby, shoot lots of photos, but delete lots as well.  My computer is flooded with pics of the kids, etc. because I don't delete enough.  How can you delete pics of your own kids? (that's my weakness) ....

This was very tough for me but I am proud of myself for growth in this area over the past six months. Yes, delete those bad photos of your kids. You might go to the park and notice that 2 out of 50 photos look great, and that 48 suck. Your kids don't suck, the photos do. Delete them. Its hard to do, but do it. Go back to the park tomorrow and get two new great ones out of 50. Forcing myself to do this caused me to think critically about what makes a good photo good, and why the bad ones suck. Avoid the bad habit of shotgunning for photos. Be intentional.

There will be opportunities where either the timing or awkwardness only allows you one chance to take a photo of a subject. Knowing how to quickly pick the settings that you want and compose the frame the best way possible will give you much more keepers than just putting your camera on full auto, snapping off 27 pictures, and hoping something sticks.

[huntnphool]

Pick up a high capacity external hard drive for your images, it will keep your computer from getting filled up and you can store it in your safe.

[hunting4sanity]

Pick up a high capacity external hard drive for your images, it will keep your computer from getting filled up and you can store it in your safe.

I think I just had one of those moments.  Although I still need to work on my aversion to 'delete.'

[JohnVH]

great call on the HD! I have yet to shoot in raw, if you take good pics to begin with I dont feel you need it.

[luvtohnt]

I bought a external hard drive some time ago in anticipation of being able to shoot in raw. I have been reading and lurking in the photography section for awhile, knowing I wanted to upgrade my camera. I have a 5 TB hard drive do you think that will be enough? 

Brandon

[Bean Counter]

Pick up a high capacity external hard drive for your images, it will keep your computer from getting filled up and you can store it in your safe.

Assault hard drives? 

[uplandhunter870]

Shoot in Raw or jpeg+RAW.

best advice i can give is read these books, id recommend the Understanding exposure over the Kelby books. the Kelby books are great on which settings to set to, to get a certain shot but not much theory behind why. the understanding exposure book helped me by leaps and bounds for understanding what settings to use in various situations

scott kelby
http://www.amazon.com/Scott-Kelbys-Digital-Photography-Boxed/dp/0321839951/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366588330&sr=1-1&keywords=scott+kelby

Understanding Exposure
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Exposure-3rd-Photographs-Camera/dp/0817439390/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366588611&sr=1-1&keywords=understanding+exposure

[Johnb317]

  
Learn about RAW to get the most out of your photography.
RAW gives you more post production control.  The jpgs out of your camera have run through whatever you've setup on your camera (saturation,sharpness,white balance) saves, and then throw out the rest.  RAW saves all that the chip sees so you can change all of the above.  Ie. portraits usually have sharpness set softer, and point and shoots take wow pictures because the saturation is pushed just a little bit (kinda like the old national geographic).

[luvtohnt]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I have been shooting in RAW, and it is amazing what you can do with a photo after the shot was taken. I have a book I am reading right now and just got to the ISO, exposure, apeture part of the book. It has assignments to go along with the reading so I played with the settings on the camera a little bit and WOW!! It is amazing how much better your photos can look. I can't wait to learn more.

Brandon

[huntnphool]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I have been shooting in RAW, and it is amazing what you can do with a photo after the shot was taken. I have a book I am reading right now and just got to the ISO, exposure, apeture part of the book. It has assignments to go along with the reading so I played with the settings on the camera a little bit and WOW!! It is amazing how much better your photos can look. I can't wait to learn more.

Brandon

once you learn the relationship between ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed you will never use the little "picture" modes. Av, Tv and M will likely be what you use 99.9% of the time.

Av (aperture priority) sets the shutter speed and you set the aperture. Tv (shutter priority) you set the shutter speed and the camera adjusts the aperture, "M" (manual) you set them all.

[Alchase]

As uplandhunter870 said, read Scott Kelby's books 

He has an awesome way of making things understandable to a beginner.

Another tip, ditch the preset setting on your camera, use AV or TV and learn

Learn about shutter speeds and aperture.
Shoot in RAW
Good software. Lightroom   Or Elements

And ISO

Setup something simple to shoot that won't change light source or move. Then start taking pictures.
Change your aperture, take a couple more. Reset your aperture, then change your shutter speed. Reset shutter, then change ISO etc....

That will help you see how they interact together.

Backup your RAW files, with the RAW files you can change all you want with post processing and still have the original untouched.
There are times I do shoot in jpg, but 90% I shoot is raw.

Here is how I process my photos after a day shooting.
Upload to a directory on my laptop. Your folder naming convention will play havoc later if you do not think about it now. I label mine like this
"2013 4_21_13 Park with kids"
This keeps the directories structure sorted by date/name.
You can upload straight into Lightroom or what ever post possessing software you prefer, but I like a clean directory structure for later.
After upload, I open Lightroom, and synchronize the new directories. In Lightroom, I  quicly scan through all the photos using the click zoom feature to determine if the shot is even in focus, if not I delete it.
Then I go back through and do my post processing.

Cropping is your friend, if the shot is in focus, I can usually find something worth cropping and keeping. This is where post processing software saves me. If you shoot anything like me, I may get something in the shot that looks great, but not necessarily what I was intending. Have you ever tried to shoot a large group of kids and have all of them with smiles, no fingers up the nose or crying? LOL.
Crop out the crap, and save what you like.
I also rate my photos, I can later filter the higher rated shots to be uploaded to my Smugmug account, burnt to disk or whatever.
After post processing, Backup to an external drive (I use a NAS drive), remember you can always reprocess the same photo differently as long as you have the RAW (or JPG).

This seems to work for me, but there are endless ways of doing the same thing.