A few questions

[Sirene]

I hope this is all fun for you to answer and I'm not bothering you guys with my questions.

Thanks in advance


I can’t shoot too fast or the camera will say busy and won't be able to shoot for 10 seconds, especially when using flash, is there something I can do about this ? Maybe take pictures more slowly ?

Is there some situations where you should not use mirror lock and does it really make a difference in your shots ?

On the properties of an image someone sent me it says Exposure : Normal, what is this mode ? Program ?

Does making many changes in photoshop and saving once is better than saving once everytime you make a change ? Or it will be the same quality wise ?

 

[TiCoyote]

1. It depends upon your camera. Some cameras have more internal memory and faster processors. Some cameras will shoot faster with a faster card. Most cameras will shoot faster with a lower resolution. The other issue you might be running into is that the flash needs to recharge. A new battery or a battery with a better charge would help this.

2. Often, you can't see through the lens when the mirror is locked. The purpose of the mirror lock is to prevent light from leaking through the viewfinder when the camera is on a tripod with the timer set (normally, your face does this job) or to allow you to clean the sensor.

3. I don't know. Perhaps this is the White Balance?

4. I like to save an original and a finished product. The original will have the most "information" but the finished product will be more pleasing to view. "Quality" is an ambiguous term.

 

[Canosonic]

#1 Answer above. Also try a faster memory card. And/or an external flash if your camera has a socket.
#2 I never use it.
#3 Probably not having exposure compensation. This is everywhere except automatics and Full Manual.
#4 No it doesn't. The only reason , I guess, to do that is if your computer crashes often.

 

[Dwig]

...
2. Often, you can't see through the lens when the mirror is locked. The purpose of the mirror lock is to prevent light from leaking through the viewfinder when the camera is on a tripod with the timer set (normally, your face does this job) or to allow you to clean the sensor.
...

A bit incorrect:

1 Locking up the mirror always, not "often", prevents you from seeing through the viewfinder.

2. The purpose, theses days, is solely to avoid the vibration of the slapping mirror. The mirror always lifts to seal off the viewfinder when the shutter opens whether you lock it up in advance or allow it to lift and return normally. Long ago in a galaxy far away, mirror lock was also used to allow some special wide angle lenses to mount; their rear elements extended too close to the film plane and would hit the mirror otherwise.

As to the question about saving in Photoshop: Quality loss happens only when you save to a format that uses lossy compression (e.g. JPEG) and even then it only happens to the saved file, not to the file in memory.

When you open a file in Photoshop, that data in PS is not long in the original file format; it is in PS's own memory format. When you save the file a copy is generated in the chosen Save format which may or may not involve some quality loss in that saved file depending on the format chosen. No loss occurs to the copy that remains in memory.

When you make repeated saves to a lossy format like JPEG each JPEG save has lost some quality compared to the memory image in PS. If the same compression level is chosen each time, these JPEG saves will be of the same quality as each other since each one was freshly generated from the memory image.

Where continuing quality loss occurs is when you work on an image, save to JPEG, close the image, open the saved JPEG, perform more edits, and resaved. This is a very, very, very poor workflow since quality begins to spiral downward quickly after one 2 or 3 cycles.

As a rule, a excellent workflow involves NEVER opening a JPEG for editing. You always start with the original RAW image or some other camera or scanner generated lossless image format such as TIFF. After editing, save an edited "master" file in some lossless format (e.g. PSD or TIFF). If you need a JPEG copy to send out for printing or for email or web display you should generate one from the edited master file. When doing any future edits you use the master file and not a JPEG copy. This way there is no continuing quality loss other than what results from whatever injudicious edits you may make (resolution change, excessively expanded shadows, ...). It would be considered a good, but not excellent, workflow to start with a camera generated JPEG, instead of a TIFF or RAW, provided you still save the edited master file in a lossless format and not as a JPEG.