I hate Canon EOS450D

[stanislaw32]

This is crying for help.
In the before-digital era I was a happy user of EOS300.
Two years ago I switched to EOS350D. I won't comment on that, but a week ago I bought EOS450D.
I took it for a test for a weekend on the coast.
Beautiful sunny weather (only one weekend like that per year in Ireland) and the place was amazing so I hoped to be back with some killer photos.

Unfortunately plenty of photos are having terrible contrasts.
Faces became almost B&W or at least very pale.

In very many situations I am loosing details. It never happened to me before!

Additionally the colors are crazy.
I did use in few cases pol filter, but I know how to use it and many pictures taken without filter have not natural colors. Green is usually washed out green. Blue... the sky it is always washed out and the sea dark blue.
Not much red though. Like the faces-they are missing red, they are pale.

I believe it has something to do with the setting of picture style. The setting was not there in 350d.
It is supposed to process you pictures and you can add up sharpness saturation etc.
I used mainly standard setting, testing also portrait and landscape, but they do not differ so much except landscape gives slightly more vivid colors.

My colleague who is using 30d told me he has similar observations. He uses landscape setting with added sharpness and saturation.

I am very curious if people have similar observations and how are you dealing with that.

The change 300 to 350d was already a pretty tough one and now to 450d seems to be dramatic. And I cannot explain at home that the more expensive cameras I buy the worse photos I get.

Another observation: when I used pol filter on top of UV filter, I can already see the rings in the picture (at 18 end). This may have something to do with the new diameter of the 18-55 kit lenses. Unfortunate though that I cannot use two filters at the same time.

I would appreciate some advice.
May be I need to set something up?
Or is it better just sell the Canon and switch to Nikon?

 

[Alex_B]

I have never used the 350D or 450D .. but I assume that indeed the contrast is pushed too far by the camera software, so this would be a settings thing.

The 450D should at least be able to produce the same if not better results than the 350D.

Try to find out how you can set the picture styles to something very conservative and you should be fine.

Did you ever try shooting in RAW?

As for the filters, stacking filters at wide angle causes problems usually, that is normal. Did you try the lens of your 350D on the new camera? you also probably have some lenses of your 300 ?

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

"It's a poor craftsman the blames his tools"

There is most likely, nothing wrong with the camera. It sounds like you need to spend more time with it and learn the ins and outs of it.

My first suggestion would be to avoid the picture modes and stick with P, Av, Tv & M.

 

[Paparoksguitar]

I don't know if the same goes for the 450D however in my 350D in the menu there are parameters you can set. If you change it to a custom parameter you can edit the color the contrast, and some other stuff. You might want to check it out, I like to mess around with them.

But like recommended before, if you shoot in RAW it will make it a lot easier so that you can just edit it later, I know this isn't encouraged but I say one less thing to think about while shooting is okay with me. I guess it's personal preference.

 

[stanislaw32]

I have never used the 350D or 450D .. but I assume that indeed the contrast is pushed too far by the camera software, so this would be a settings thing.

The 450D should at least be able to produce the same if not better results than the 350D.

Try to find out how you can set the picture styles to something very conservative and you should be fine.

Did you ever try shooting in RAW?

As for the filters, stacking filters at wide angle causes problems usually, that is normal. Did you try the lens of your 350D on the new camera? you also probably have some lenses of your 300 ?

I have never tried RAW yet.
The size of it is unpleasant and I really have to work with every picture I take.
For my hobby night photos it is ok but with family photos or from travel it may be too hard.
May be it is time to start.

The old lenses are ok, however the 18-55 one from 350d is rather cheap so I was actually happy to get the new one (with 450d) because it has IS and bigger diameter lenses.

There are settings natural and faithful for picture style. I tested natural and it does not really change much except may be the colors are bit more washed out. I need to test faithful with may be some addition of saturation and sharpness.

 

[stanislaw32]

Welcome to the forum.

"It's a poor craftsman the blames his tools"

There is most likely, nothing wrong with the camera. It sounds like you need to spend more time with it and learn the ins and outs of it.

My first suggestion would be to avoid the picture modes and stick with P, Av, Tv & M.

You did not get my post.
I never used picture modes. On average usually Tv.
Picture style is a new setting in the newest Canons. It is something else and you cannot switch it of in the creative modes.

 

[Big Mike]

I apologise.

I don't know much about Picture Styles, as I shoot with older Canon cameras.

My preference is for the camera to have as little influence on the processing as possible. I shoot in RAW and do the processing myself, rather than letting the camera add saturation or sharpness etc.

Also, how are you judging the images? On a calibrated computer monitor or just on the camera's LCD screen? The screen on the new camera might be different that what you are used to, which might be throwing you off.

 

[Village Idiot]

Posting images for us to see would really help.

"Hey, my camera looks blurry, can you guys help?"

 

[Rachelsne]

Raw is worth the time-I am a new owner of the 30d, and shot jpeg tostart with, but RAW-wow what a difference, it gives you much more ability to tweak the things you dont like when you upload your pictures to your computer

 

[stanislaw32]

I apologise.

I don't know much about Picture Styles, as I shoot with older Canon cameras.

My preference is for the camera to have as little influence on the processing as possible. I shoot in RAW and do the processing myself, rather than letting the camera add saturation or sharpness etc.

Also, how are you judging the images? On a calibrated computer monitor or just on the camera's LCD screen? The screen on the new camera might be different that what you are used to, which might be throwing you off.

Yes.
That is why while using eos300 (not digital) I was very happy. I just cared about exposition etc. May be you are right maybe I need to switch to RAW.

 

[jg123]

Check through this review, near the end they do quality comparisions with other eos cameras and other brands too.

 

[Overread]

I find that while RAW is large in file size, possibly a little too large for a single 2GB or 1GB memory card for a day's worth of shooting. Better is a 4GB memory card that should give you around 310 shots.

 

[stanislaw32]

Raw is worth the time-I am a new owner of the 30d, and shot jpeg tostart with, but RAW-wow what a difference, it gives you much more ability to tweak the things you dont like when you upload your pictures to your computer

Thanks.
I may test RAWs today.
I go to Paris for a week next week and I don't know which camera to take. 450d should be better but it is not in my hands yet...

 

[stanislaw32]

Thanks everybody. It is nice to get so much feedback. Among other ideas I will certainly try RAW. This should be I guess a way to avoid unwanted and uncontrolled processing....

I do have two 8GB cards but it may be not enough with 12Mpx for a week of shooting using RAW.

 

[Overread]

ahh I forgot that the 450 had larger file sizes -- I would still stay in RAW if I were you though. As for space you could find a cybercafe and burn a load of shots to DVD (do it twice for insurance incase one DVD dies) midweek if you needed