Eos 1000D Question

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Rob
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I've had my 1000D for a few months now and I love it, but one thing in particular has been bugging me. In comparison to my previous camera, a Fujifilm s9600, the ratio between ISO/Aperture/Shutter Speed is very limiting.

What I mean is, in anything but extremely well lit environments, I have to whack the ISO up and shoot at a very large aperture to achieve a satisfactory shutter speed (hand-held).

This was proved perfectly yesterday, when I attended the MPH show at the NEC. Earlier in the year I went to the Autosport Show, also at the NEC with my Fuji so the conditions were exactly the same at both (namely those aweful sodium lights that play havoc with your white balance!)

After some experimenting yesterday I found it impossible to achieve anything remotely sharp at anything under 800iso and the lens's max aperture f4 (Sigma 10-20mm). This equated to shutter speeds of between 1/10s-1/50s. Whereas with my Fuji at autosport, I was able to shoot at similar speeds and apertures, but at 100iso!

And due to the much greater DOF with the Canon sensor, a lot of my shots from yesterday are quite disappointing, with a lot of the subject/frame being very soft :(


So, I'm posing this question to you more experienced DSLR users... Is this just something I have to get used to? And learn to work around? Or could there possibly be a problem with my equipment? Im fairly sure its nothing to do with the lens, as its the same problem with my Sigma 70-300, and the Canon 18-55 kit lens. So could it be a faulty body?

Any ideas/advice/information would be greatly appreciated as its bugging me quite a lot now!! Cheers

Rob :)
 
Your s9600 had a min aperture of f/2.8 and the sigma is f4 - you need fast glass for low light have a look at the 50mm f/1.8.

'And due to the much greater DOF with the Canon sensor, a lot of my shots from yesterday are quite disappointing, with a lot of the subject/frame being very soft ! '

not sure what you mean here as greater DOF means more of the image will be in focus ? a shallow depth of field will help you isolate a subject.

Post some images so we can see whats happening
 
Dogfish_magnet said:
Your s9600 had a min aperture of f/2.8 and the sigma is f4 - you need fast glass for low light have a look at the 50mm f/1.8.

'And due to the much greater DOF with the Canon sensor, a lot of my shots from yesterday are quite disappointing, with a lot of the subject/frame being very soft ! '

not sure what you mean here as greater DOF means more of the image will be in focus ? a shallow depth of field will help you isolate a subject.

Post some images so we can see whats happening
Click to expand...

I realise that the max aperture of the 10-20 isnt the fastest, but by shooting at a higher ISO I thought I could overcome this. And I wouldnt call the conditions particularly "low-light" which is why I was quite confused and disappointed.

And yes, I worded that badly, what I meant was due to me shooting at (mainly) f4, the DOF was pretty shallow, which didnt always produce the kind outcomes I was after...
 
With a 10-20mm lens the DOF is massive even at f4 - if you shoot at f4 @ 15mm and focus on a object 10ft away everything from 4.95ft in front of you to infinity will be sharp.

dof.jpg


Have a look here for a calculator.

Unfortunately there's no substitute for fast glass - your af will always be trying to focus using the min aperture f4 at 10mm and f5.6 at 20mm so you could get issues in low light, where as a f1.8 will always focus at f1.8.
 
I know about all the technicalities and the "rules" but I can physically see in some of my photos that the DOF is far from massive. Also due to the extremely wide angle at 10mm, I was shooting probably about 4ft max from the subject.

However, this isnt my main qualm, its the fact that, for one reason or another, I was able to shoot in exactly the same conditions with the same basic settings at 100iso on one camera, but at only 800iso on my canon :thinking:

Heres a particularly bad example, f4.5, 1/13s @ f4.5 800iso

You can see how shallow the DOF is, and even the bits in focus, namely the headlight/front bumper aren't particularly sharp. I know this could be greatly improved with a slightly smaller aperture, getting into the lens's sweet spot and consequently having a greater DOF, but even at 800iso this is impossible

IMG_2824.jpg
 
Looking at this image i would say its camera shake or its just out of focus - the camera focus point is on the front right headlight and that doesn't look in focus to me.

focus.jpg


Did you try other camera at the same time to be sure that the conditions were exactly the same ?
 
Oh its undoubtedly mainly due to camera shake, which is almost bound to be present at 1/13s shutter (for me anyway) that image was mainly to display the shallow DOF. But its the point I'm making, 1/13s doesnt seem logical to me when I was shooting at 800iso and a (relatively) large aperture... I'd have thought I should be shooting at a much faster speed.

I didnt happen to use another camera then, but as said, I did shoot in exactly the same conditions earlier in the year with my fuji.

How did you conclude that to be the focal point? As to me it appears the focal point to be the left sided lamp?

I have managed to rescue this image slightly using the good old medium of photoshop!

mph8.jpg
 
If you open up the image in photome a free exif viewer it will show where the focus point is:) - the shot still appears quite soft i've got the same lens - this was shot about the same settings execpt its iso 125 :thinking:
test.jpg



exif.jpg
 
Its not the metering thats cocked it up is it?

Black car in a relatively dark room...
 
My opinion would be go back next year with glass that will give you a fast f2.8 and crank it up to ISO 1600, that will increase shutter speed enough to prevent camera shake. Also, shoot in RAW and set the camera up in Manual. If you were using aperture or shutter priority, it would cause problems shooting a black car.

One final tip, choose your focus point instead of letting the camera do it for you

Mike
 
Okay thanks guys, I will note all of your tips. Thinking about it, it probably was fairly low light all things considered, and I suppose I under-estimated the need for really quick glass (50mm f1.8 maybe, or sigma 24-70 f2.8 which I considered instead of the 10-20mm)

Just wanted to make sure it was actually user error and not faulty equipment!

:)
 
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