Canon EOS 10D first impressions and questions

[dloose]

Just got my 10D a week ago, and have been 5 days in Grand Teton

National park with it. First.. I love the camera, had an EOS 650

before and it's very comfortable to switch to. Thought I'd add some

of my first impressions for those interested.

 

Pictures are great, and seem to be very well focused and colors very

natural. I shot mostly in Program mode, and did have problems

accidentally switching some of the settings. After a hundred pics or

so, noticed I'd switched WB to Flash, fortunately that didn't screw

up colors too much. Also, just now realized I shot the last half in

Partial metering, as opposed to evaluative. I think eval would have

exposed lots of my pictures better...

 

On focusing/exposing... I found you have to be very careful with the

multispot focusing.. pictures of mountains framed by trees tended to

focus and expose for the trees. Due to the distance, focus is ok,

but exposure left the mountains very washed out. Luckily, with image

review.. you can see this and change. I started using the center

focus point only, and things improved dramatically. This is what I'm

used to from EOS 650 anyway, so it's fine for me.

 

A question... does anyone have any thoughts or comments regarding

the "latitude" of the sensor? How the range of light/dark is

captured in a single shot. I guess my initial feeling is that it's

not quite as forgiving as film.. under/over exposure leaves very

little room to adjust in the digital darkroom. Some of my pics can

be adjusted, but there are plenty that are either to dark or too

light, and the histogram shows peaks at either end of the spectrum..

i.e. no detail there to recover. Any thoughts?

 

Thanks, David

[PuppyDigs]

Compared to negative film, the 10D's CMOS sensor has a narrow exposure latitude. Highlights blow out very easily. The CMOS image sensor appears to have even less tolerance of overexposure than slide films. On the other hand, Photoshop can pull shadow details out of 10D files that couldn't exist in slide film. In bright contrasty light, I need -1/3 to -1/2 stop AE comp to keep highlights from blowing out. In dim or less contrasty light AE comp isn't normally needed. It's better to error on the side of underexposure as shadows can be brought out later in PS. Blown highlights are gone forever...

[luke_pederson]

I shot a wedding this weekend with mine. Going through the photos and I have found that I can pull out detail from the shadows nicely. I had to do this on a couple of the photos as I was shooting in manual mode and bumped the wheel on the back of the camera changing my f-stop. (I have to remember to check the prievew. That one of the reasons why I went digital.) I always focus on the brides eyes and even at full length poses the sharpness is great. I am using the 50mm 1.4 USM at about 5.6 or 5.6½ for most of the shots. I would rank the optical quality somewhere above my 35mm and below my RB6x7 format camera, but top on my list of ease to use. My RB67 made me really earm my money during weddings. I took 200 shots during the formal's with this camera in less time that I could have taken 75 with my RB. This is camera is great.

[happy_chappy]

David,

 

Congratulations on your wise choice of camera.

 

Latitude. Expose as you would slide. You have five stops of latitude. When you look at the histogram you will see it is broken into five segments, each of which is a stop (I didn't see it until it was pointed out).

 

Tip - set your camera up to review with exposure details/histogram (INFO). Just glance at your image for 'hot-spots' (the flashing white bits in the image) and 'read' the histogram. Stay away from the right hand edge which signifies blown highlights.

 

Be snappy - Be happy!

[jim_larson1]

Shooting "RAW" can help: If you mess up, you can change the settings later.

 

Also, keep an eye on what ISO you are shooting. Since ISO is not readily shown in the viewfinder or the LCD top panel, I occasionally find I am not shooting what I think I am shooting. (this is my second biggest gripe with the camera)

[rob de la selva]

Shooting RAW doesn't mean that you don't need to worry about blown highlights. If you really blow the highlights in either JPEG or RAW, they are gone, and no amount of playing around will ever bring them back. That's why the 10D will show you flashing black areas where you've overexposed. Generally that shot is destined for the bin - don't plan on bringing them back in post production!

 

I'd agree with the above comments about half a stop of negative exposure comp in contrasty conditions - or perhaps even more.

 

I don't shoot weddings, but I do shoot white birds - that's the same sort of thing, isn't it?!

On a sunny day, it's often quite hard with the 10D to keep the highlights intact, and I have been finding half to one stop under seems to often be called for with a white subject like this.