Camera Usage

Hello,
This is another Q about camera usage.

I am new to photography in the sense that I was shooting with point and shoot (G7) and now wanted to learn more about taking picture. I bought a canon T2i/550D and have been experimenting with it. Here are some of my concerns I have, on which I need advise on.

01. When I turn off the camera and clip on the lens cap, should I press it in, thus making the lens rotate to "24 mm" from "18mm" or should I NOT press the cap in so hard?

02. When I keep the camera in the camera bag, what is the best position to keep it in? bottom down, lens facing inside or on its side, where I can pull it out easily or on its LCD face down.

03. How much is over using the camera? I am learning by reading books, so I click about 50 to 75 pictures a day of which maybe 5 to 10 looks good enough to keep. The rest I delete.

04. For starters, can I trust picasa with its auto-colour adjust? I am partially colour blind and cannot trust my judgement. Or should I use a more advanced editor like GIMP?

05. While shooting at night or morning, does it matter if I use ISO100 and adjust the Aperture and Shutter speed/time to compensate?

I am including couple of the shots I took this morning, along with the picasa's auto-colour adjust. The one which has the file name extension -ac is the picasa's edit.

I am sure I will have more questions as I learn more.
Thanks in advance for your time and advise.

-Rajiv

hi rajiv
1st. dont touch the lens glass with the cap
2nd. i dont think it make any difference but it should be tight in position i personally prefer bottom down(lcd!)
3rd.100,000 shots is ok so dont worry! after all your camera will cheap out after months let alone years make the most out of your money!
4th.i dont know if youre colour blind?
5th.no in fact if you can manage to do so its good!
!!!!dont ever look in sun with the view finder its so so dangerous ! its like burning you eyes with a magnifier glass
and after all as a newbie myself ,I highly recommend it to you to read the tutorials provided here they are very good for beginners like you and me

Hi Rajiv,

I don't disagree with Omid's answers, although I would say;
Q1. The zoom ring is the only thing you should ever touch to make the focal length change. You should not need to press a lens cap on; doesn't it have a pair of pinch handles? Depress those, put it in place, then release and it should stay in place, no pressing involved. i.e. the reverse of taking it off.

Q2. I would always stow a camera either bottom down (i.e. tripod bush on floor of bag), look in bag and see top of pentaprism block, OR lens down, if using a shaped bags designed for that, look in bag and see LCD and rear of camera.

Q3. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me, don't worry

Q4. In this rather unusual case, I prefer the Picasa white balance, but if you have the camera on Auto WB, it may not need adjusting.

Q5. In general, it is always best to shoot at a lower iso number for better noise, BUT it depends what you're shooting, subject movement, if any over-rules time of day, as does a desire for a certain Depth of Field by using an appropriate aperture.

I also suggest you make a start reading the tutorials on this site, just 2 a day, and ask us questions here if there's anything you're not sure about.

I also agree with Omid's warning about sun shooting, it is dangerous and even using Live View, while protecting your eyes, means you risk permanently damaging the camera's sensor.

Hope that helps,

In my mind the only no-no on the camera in the bag is lens up. Stowed with the lens up it is just too tempting to pull the camera out by pulling on the lens. DON'T DO THAT!

Pops

Thank you all for your advise.

Yes, I have been reading tutorials from this website. Found it while searching for "aperture and ISO". Loved it and immediately join the forum. I read a lot of your replies, so I knew this is an active forum.

01. No pushing on the lens.
02. place camera with its tripod hole down.
03. 50 to 75 shots is not over using it, so I am safe.
04. picasa is ok? Picasa does colour correction which I am not sure it is fair or good. With the shots I posted, the one which was edited with picasa, the SUN came out more yellowish than white, so was a little confused.
I am not totally colour blind, I can make out colours if they stand by themselves. Cannot make head of tail of blends or shades. When it comes to trees, grass, flowers, their colours are lost on me.
05. Do not shoot the SUN, as it will damage the camera sensor. Yes, I did not look through the view finder or the live view to shoot that shot. I just pointed the camera in the general direction and snapped the shot.

Since I bought this camera, I have been only reading and experimenting. At first it was an overload of controls, but now, I am getting the hang of it. At least I know what is going on. :)

Its been 13 days since I got this camera and I can finally understand what some of the books I am reading are talking about.

Thanks for all your advise. I will post some of my pictures for your criticism as and when I take ones that are worth sharing.

-Rajiv