Taking the pictures

These first few posts will be mostly introductory. My equipment is pretty modest. I have a Canon system, a Rebel XT and two good prime lenses (the EF 50mm f/1.8 II and the EF 100mm f/2.8 USM macro), along with a Vivitar 285HV flash and some pretty nifty Cactus V2 wireless triggers to use the flash off-camera. I also have two Canon kit zoom lenses (the EF-S 15-55mm II and EF 28-80mm II) and while neither are very good at all, I sometimes take one out for a spin to take advantage of the wider angle photos I can get with them. The ladybug photo to the right was taken with the 28-80mm, so it's not that you can't get good results with them, it's just easier to get good results with nearly any other modern lens...

At home, I use the flash for pretty much every photo I take, even if it's just semi-mindless snapshotting my roommate's cats. It's not a TTL flash that the camera can control, so I leave the camera in full manual mode, set the shutter speed to 200 (my camera's max sync speed -- any faster and I'll see the shutter's shadow in the image), and control the image via the aperture (f/8 or thereabouts is good) or the flash's power setting. I would definitely say that I wasn't getting my money out of the macro lens until I picked up the flash and trigger.

When I'm out on a photowalk, I don't usually bring the flash along. I'll shoot in Aperture-priority mode and usually aim for f/5 to f/8. Though I don't have tremendous flexibility in focal range with these two lenses, they are both tack-sharp with excellent bokeh (the quality of the out-of-focus areas of the image), and so many of my images end up being, essentially, plant or object portraits.

I'm finding myself using full manual mode more often as I get more proficient with it. Frankly the Rebel XT doesn't make it easy to use -- you have to hold down a button on the back of the camera while you turn the adjustment dial to change the aperture -- but the more I do it, the more I like having that control.

Next, I'll talk more about my digital workflow, once I've gotten the photos from the camera onto the computer.