Ugh... living with a non-image-stabilized lens

[lordfly]

So my Canon XTi came with a single lens, the kit lens. an 18-55 non-IS lens.

Either I have Parkinson's, the lens is crap, or I'm holding the camera wrong.

I went to the zoo today. Lots of opportunities for shots of wildlife. Even taking into consideration the distance from the animals (can't zoom in terribly far with a 55mm lens), you'd think I'd be able to get at least... I dunno, a few shots that weren't completely blurry.

You'd be wrong. Any shot of an animal is, essentially, a blurry mess.

Perhaps my settings are messed up? If you're just shooting pictures of wildlife, what aperture setting should I be tooling around with? The camera was set on Aperture Priority mode, set around f/8.0 most of the day.

Another thing; inside the exhibits, even with ISO 1600 on, exposure times ranged from 1/5 to half a second. I've found that if my camera is hand-held at those shutter speeds, the pictures are nigh-on worthless. And, sure enough, loading up the pics today confirm that.

So, what's the correct way to hold the camera? Maybe I just need to learn to balance better or something. Or breathe less. Or both.

I'm so frustrated right now. A nice day at the zoo, ruined because it looks like beer goggles got into my camera.

 

[white]

You should be using, at the very least, a 1/60 shutter with that lens. There probably wasn't enough light to be shooting aperture-priority f/8 with a minimum 1/60 shutter, so your camera probably compensated for that with a 1/30, or 1/5 shutter or whatever. Not surprising that you got blur.

Try shutter-priority next time. A general rule of thumb is to use a shutter that is greater than your lens focal length. So, a 1/125 shutter for 75mm, 100mm, etc.

 

[reznap]

I always remember my military rifle training when I take pictures. Bone support, muscle relaxation, breathing control, trigger control (in this case shutter button control) lol. It sounds ridiculous but it works.

f/8 is to small an aperture for low-light situations. I think the best that lens can do is 3.5? I'd put it on 3.5 then, high iso, maybe underexpose a little if you have to in order to keep the shutter speed up and have your image sharp. If you shoot in raw you can fix a little underexposure pretty easily, I think you can do ok even with just a jpeg.

If you want to keep doing low-light stuff, get a faster lens like the cheapo 50mm 1.8. You'll be able to keep your shutter speed up with that.

Don't get frustrated, you got some good practice and learned some lessons.

 

[JimmyO]

Ive never owned an IS/VR lens. Check out my flickr, i dont think that effected anything...

 

[lordfly]

Try shutter-priority next time. A general rule of thumb is to use a shutter that is greater than your lens focal length. So, a 1/125 shutter for 75mm, 100mm, etc.

Ah, but if i set the shutter too fast, there won't be enough light coming into the sensor anyway, correct?

 

[lordfly]

Ive never owned an IS/VR lens. Check out my flickr, i dont think that effected anything...

Are you using a tripod most of the time? I'm usually out and about with my camera and look even more unwieldly with a tripod in tow.

Another problem is that the picture looks somewhat decent in the LCD. Granted, that's a horrible reference, but if it looked fine in the viewfinder, and looked okay in the LCD...

Oh also also, the suggestion to crank up the aperture. That will lead to a crazy low DoF, right? As in only part of the object is going to be in focus most of the time anyway?

My knowledge of optics isn't what it should be, perhaps.

 

[white]

Try shutter-priority next time. A general rule of thumb is to use a shutter that is greater than your lens focal length. So, a 1/125 shutter for 75mm, 100mm, etc.

Ah, but if i set the shutter too fast, there won't be enough light coming into the sensor anyway, correct?

Think of it like a game you have to play with your camera. One goes up and usually the other has to come down (excluding any desired special effects). So if the only way you're going to get a good exposure at f/8 is with a shutter of 1/30, then open your aperture to f/5.6 and you can shoot 1/60 to your heart's delight.

Additionally, you might find it worthwhile to google Exposure Basics and/or Exposure Triangle.

 

[reznap]

f4 in this photo I took at the zoo recently. It's not a great photo (blown out areas, could be a bit sharper, other areas look underexposed, etc) but it's not horrible either. I have IS on this lens so 1/80th isn't horrible at 75mm but you get the idea. Could have used some fill flash here but there was a pane of glass. Also I don't like using flash around animals, seems like a dick thing to do.

ISO 400, Av mode f4.

 

[JimmyO]

Only reason ive ever used a tripod is for long exposure's at night, and self portraits to hold the camera.

 

[DerekSalem]

I always remember my military rifle training when I take pictures. Bone support, muscle relaxation, breathing control, trigger control (in this case shutter button control) lol. It sounds ridiculous but it works.

f/8 is to small an aperture for low-light situations. I think the best that lens can do is 3.5? I'd put it on 3.5 then, high iso, maybe underexpose a little if you have to in order to keep the shutter speed up and have your image sharp. If you shoot in raw you can fix a little underexposure pretty easily, I think you can do ok even with just a jpeg.

If you want to keep doing low-light stuff, get a faster lens like the cheapo 50mm 1.8. You'll be able to keep your shutter speed up with that.

Don't get frustrated, you got some good practice and learned some lessons.

I do the same thing. I'm USAF and every time I move to take a picture that will contain some amount of difficulty I go back to my training lol it honestly works so well.

And to the guy saying you've never owned an IS but your pictures come out fine...after looking through your Flickr I would definitely agree with you...except you have *very* few pictures in poorly-lit areas. The only one I found was one I'm assuming was from inside your car pointed straight ahead at the sky. If you have plenty of light, IS or a tripod aren't necessary...but I can honestly say IS is a *fantastic* thing to have if you have the money. With the exception of one Sigma lens, I've gotten IS/OS on every single lens I've bought.

I have a very steady hand. I was trained as an expert marksman by the US military and at rest my heart beat lies around 55-60bpm (fairly low). Without using IS of any kind I can usually grab a picture at 100mm down to around 1/30 without seeing noticeable blur (unless zoomed in quite a bit). With normal IS (standard Canon or the Sigma OS) I can drop that to around 1/20 comfortably (I've taken 1/10 at 200mm). With the higher-quality new IS from Canon (on the new 70-200 I just bought is the new version) I've taken pictures at *FULL* 200mm zoom down to around 1/4 of a second with virtually no blur at all.

I don't care how good you are...without a good IS there's no possibility of handholding a shot at 200mm and 1/4s shutter speed. It's not that I need IS...it's just that in some instances it allows me to get shots I would otherwise be unable to get. I *always* recommend getting lenses with IS, even if they cost more (the non-IS version of my lens costs almost half of the IS version at roughly $700). Completely worth it for anyone that doesn't always have a tripod with them

 

[lordfly]

Only reason ive ever used a tripod is for long exposure's at night, and self portraits to hold the camera.

Interesting. Good to know that with enough practice I might be actually able to finagle this stupid lens to do my bidding.

After a few hours of culling and cropping I found about 30 pictures I'm moderately satisfied with. There's still a myriad of technical issues (forgot to turn down the ISO while outside, hurr), but they're not too horrible, I guess.

Toledo Zoo, April 2010 - a set on Flickr

I'm going to go to bed and try not to blow up my lens in the process. Thanks for the suggestions everyone... I've got Exposure Triangle queued up to be read tomorrow morning.

 

[AxelMoney]

I always remember my military rifle training when I take pictures. Bone support, muscle relaxation, breathing control, trigger control (in this case shutter button control) lol. It sounds ridiculous but it works.

I do the EXACT same thing lol.

 

[Derrel]

So my Canon XTi came with a single lens, the kit lens. an 18-55 non-IS lens.

Either I have Parkinson's, the lens is crap, or I'm holding the camera wrong.

I went to the zoo today. Lots of opportunities for shots of wildlife. Even taking into consideration the distance from the animals (can't zoom in terribly far with a 55mm lens), you'd think I'd be able to get at least... I dunno, a few shots that weren't completely blurry.

Well, the 18-55 NON-IS Canon lens is a very poor lens. I know--I have seen numerous test results of the lens, and I also own one. The problem the lens suffers from is bad chromatic aberration. It is simply NOT a good zoom lens. When it came out, it was roundly critcized by reviewers. I looked at the set of images you referred us to on Flickr; the shot of the twisted tree trunks at the zoo is a good example illustrating the lens's shortcomings. Look for purple fringing, as well as some sort of hard-to-spot chromatic aberration at the edges of objects, where greenish-yellow lateral chromatic aberration robs the image of absolute sharpness.

The original 18-55 non-IS Canon zoom was designed quite a number of years ago now, for an 8 megapixel sensor, and a super-low price point. There's no two ways about it--it is a poor optical performer,and even at f/8 the lens is not "excellent". It just does not cut the mustard, and higher MP sensors and the short focal length make optical performance unfortunately quite critical. Short lenses, in the 18-28mm focal length range are somewhat difficult to make perform really well, due to a number of optical and mechanical design issues that have existed for decades,and the low price and light weight design parameters just kill this particular lens's performance. Even wide-angle primes that cost 3,4 times as much to make can have problems with lateral color fringing.

As to those really slow shutter speeds--those speeds seem somewhat slow,given the light levels and this time (season) of the year.

 

[LaFoto]

Well, I've never owned an IS lens in my life and I still get reasonable photos without tripod even, and in poor light situations, too. If I know light will be very poor (indoors, no flash allowed or I don't want to use flash), I make use of the above mentioned "el cheapo" 50mm f1.8, not using it at its largest aperture, though, but at 2.2 or so, and highest possible ISO (which is at 1600 with the 350D). I make sure my elbows are close to my chest, my head is as still as can be, myself serving as my own "monopod", and I relax, control my breathing, and try to push the release as smoothly as possible. Works fine in some cases, not in all. It also depends on how relaxed I am, or in how rushed (rushed is never good!).

Since my (equally "el cheapo") Sigma DG Macro 70-300mm tele zoom lens is showing signs of old age (at only four years of age!) and is no longer really reliable at all, I had to return to my "good old" kit lens for a number of photos of late, and I must say: despite all the negative critisism I'm reading about it, it isn't too bad, after all. OF COURSE, there's tons of better equipment out there for loads of more money that I (e.g.) have, but ... if that is all you've got, you're not TOO badly off. It DOES work - but it wants light, and at f8 you're no longer giving it a whole lot of light, that much is true. So it compensates for the lack of light that is allowed to fall through the small aperture by longer exposure times, and if you're not prepared for THAT to happen (and you don't hear it, either), then automatically all your photos will blur.

But you should not automatically blame only the lens for this to happen!

 

[fokker]

You don't need IS to get a sharp handheld shot.

Keep an eye on your shutter speed (SS) and use the 1/focal length rul. That is to say, if your at 18mm on the lens then your shutter speed must be great than 1/18th of a second. If you're at 55mm then the SS must be faster than 1/55 of a second. Of course this is aonly a rule of thumb - good holding and breathing technique can improve the speeds you can use significantly. And just to confuse the matter some more, you also have to factor in your 1.6 crop factor, so instead of 1/55s at 55mm it should be 1/88s or faster. A good idea would be to just double it and then round up or down as feasible. There is no need to worry about the difference between 1/80 and 1/88 for example, that was just to help you understand what I was talking about.

The best way to go about this in practice is to use shutter speed priority mode (Tv) on the camera, and set it 1/125 for your lens, that way you can walk around all day with that lens and you shouldn't get any blurry shots. I'm not sure if the Xsi has auto ISO, but if not then you will have to keep an eye on that and change it if necessary. I would say keep it at 100 or 200 in good daylight, but you'll need to start cranking it up as the light drops. Don't be afraid to go to 1600 - a bit of noise is much better (and easier to fix in PP) than a blurry mess.