Canon EOS Rebel T5I

[CanonNoob9]

Hi Everyone,
I'm new here and need some help. My lovely husband bought me the Canon EOs Rebel T5I for Christmas this year. I am over joyed about this as I have always wanted a decently good camera to take photos with as a hobby. I was a package deal so it came with a 55-250MM F/4-5.6 IS STM Len and a 18-55MM F/3 5-5.6 IS Lens. So far I have only been using the 18-55mm and from what I have read the 55-250mm is more for landscape photos which I have yet to try.
I have always been the one with the camera glued to my hand and even with the small scale digital cameras some of my photos turned out pretty nice. Now that I have this camera I am at a loss at what apetures to set my camera too. I have been watching youtube videos to try and help me learn but, my photos look like they are coming out with a yellowy ting to them and its not what I want at all.
I have been keeping my camera on AV priority and playing with the F-stops and exposures but they never look the way I want them too.
I am wondering if anyone has any tips one how to help me get a more crisp/sharp photos that aren't yellow? Also, what is a decent editing program that is not hard to use. My husband uploaded photoshop for me to use and it's seems so complication to use! I attached a few I have edited and taken so far. Any help or opinions would be great!

 

[soufiej]

The shots you've posted were taken indoors under artificial light. Try adjusting your camera's setting for the lighting type, it should be in the menu of the camera.

There are numerous image processing programs to choose from. The best bet, IMO, is to read and try a few. You can delete the program if you don't care for it and try another. What you want is based solely on what you need. You probably received some Canon software with the camera.

If you are shooting in Jpeg format (check the camera's menu), you'll want less of a program since the camera automatically makes many corrections in its own software. You can't make as many adjustments in this format as you can in RAW. RAW, however, probably will require most post production time and expertise. If you prefer to stay with Jpeg, you might want to take your camera's settings down to minimal or off which will prevent the camera's correction systems from overdoing their efforts to turn out a nice but seldom great image.

 

[Lucryster]

The 55-200 would be more for close ups and portrait shots. Landscapes tend to be taken with wide angle lenses.

The yellowish tinge is due to white balance, not aperture. You can set the white balance in camera, (with indoor shots, youll probably be dealing with either florescent or incandescent lighting), or if you have lightroom or a simular program, you can change the white balance in that after you download the pictures to your comp (this works best if you shoot in raw format).

 

[CanonNoob9]

soufiej, which programs do you think would be easiest to use? I have tried a few of the online editors and the software edit the camera came with. I find the software editor is useless. It doesn't do much in the way of editing anything.

The photo of the star ordiment I used a website editor program called Pixlr. It was decent but I found it didn't have very many settings.

 

[CanonNoob9]

The 55-200 would be more for close ups and portrait shots. Landscapes tend to be taken with wide angle lenses.

The yellowish tinge is due to white balance, not aperture. You can set the white balance in camera, (with indoor shots, youll probably be dealing with either florescent or incandescent lighting), or if you have lightroom or a simular program, you can change the white balance in that after you download the pictures to your comp (this works best if you shoot in raw format).

Thanks! The manual it came with said it was for landscapes but, I guess that would make sense since it took a few nice photos of my son and daughter when I was testing it out on New Years. I'll look through the lighting settings and see if adjusting those helps with the yellowish tinge.

 

[Lucryster]

soufiej, which programs do you think would be easiest to use? I have tried a few of the online editors and the software edit the camera came with. I find the software editor is useless. It doesn't do much in the way of editing anything.

The photo of the star ordiment I used a website editor program called Pixlr. It was decent but I found it didn't have very many settings.

Id recommend lightroom. Its not overly complicated to learn the basics, and is extremely powerful. Also a great tool for organizing your photos.

 

[CanonNoob9]

Id recommend lightroom. Its not overly complicated to learn the basics, and is extremely powerful. Also a great tool for organizing your photos.

Is this a software that I have to purchase or is it a website editor?

 

[soufiej]

soufiej, which programs do you think would be easiest to use? I have tried a few of the online editors and the software edit the camera came with. I find the software editor is useless. It doesn't do much in the way of editing anything.

The photo of the star ordiment I used a website editor program called Pixlr. It was decent but I found it didn't have very many settings.

Sorry, I really can't recommend a program for you. The question is a bit like asking what diet to follow, how to raise your children or which car to drive. There are too many options and what one person finds useful might not be the choice of another. I simply have to repeat, read about your options and try a few. Like a recipe, you have to decide which spices, which additions and which deletions, make for the most satisfying result.

First, though, you should decide which format you'll use to shoot and store your photographs. There are pro's and con's to either selection. And, like most things subjectively chosen, if you take "this", you'll probably give up "that" or else you'll end up with a processing program so large as to be unmanageable. Do you know without looking which format you have been using? Jpeg? Or, RAW? Or, your camera has the ability to store the image data as both and you can decide later which you prefer to use for what purpose. This simple decision will affect greatly which format/program you learn first and how you wish to deal with the results.


As to your photos not being "crisp", work first on how to hold the camera properly and develop your skills at pushing the shutter button. It's a very simple thing most beginners don't get quite right. Most beginners will have a tendency to push too hard, to sort of jab at the shutter, which creates movement in the camera just as the shutter is allowing light through the lens. There are several videos available which should help you out here.

Additionally, you can use either a tripod or a monopod to assist you as you learn. I would guess many photographers have both since each serves a distinct purpose and neither is all that expensive. A tripod would be a highly recommended accessory if you intend to do any landscape shots or even most wildlife work since it will really crisp up your shots and contribute to that sense of detail many people find highly desireable. (Any image stabilization systems on your camera/lens should be disabled if you use a tripod. Remember to turn them back on when you're not using a tripod.) A monopod is lighter and more maneuverable though it offers less overall support. While not the best choice for landscape work, it can be a good item to have for general shooting and it will improve your image quality. At the very least, learn how to look for other ways to add support to your camera when you're shooting. Simply leaning your elbow on a table or wall can greatly improve the stability of your camera and result in cleaner shots. Consider the idea that taking a photo from a slightly less than ubiquitous height can make for a far more interesting image. Don't shoot your camera up someone's nose but do consider not standing for every shot. Diversity is a good thing to have in your photographs. Certainly, if you are taking a shot of a young child or a pet, getting closer to their level makes for a large difference in what you show us.

Also, learn to use the shutter timer on your camera. It too is located in the menu. It will cause a short pause between the time you push the shutter release and the actual movement of the shutter itself. By using the timer, you push and then take you finger away. With this technique you won't be moving the camera at the moment the shutter releases. This is a simple technique for sharper images though, of course, not ideal if you are trying to capture fast moving action. Finally, try the continuous shooting system on your camera. By taking several shots in quick succession you increase your chances of getting a sharp image once you've stopped pushing on the camera.

There are several ways to get sharper images and, if you continue to experiment with your options, you'll soon begin to get the shots you desire. Just keep at it and remember to only change one value at any one time. Once you begin having too many changes to any one shot, you have a more difficult time deciding what made the difference you want.

Good luck, you have a nice camera to start you on your career as an award winning photographer.

 

[Lucryster]

Id recommend lightroom. Its not overly complicated to learn the basics, and is extremely powerful. Also a great tool for organizing your photos.

Is this a software that I have to purchase or is it a website editor?

Its software, you can subscribe to it and photoshop from adobe for around 10 dollars a month.

 

[James Baranski]

When using tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, you have settings on your camera that allows you to take your photos in a .raw file.

"What is a RAW file?
Files that contain the .raw file extension contain 24-bit RGB graphics files. These image files are uncompressed files that contain raw image data.

RAW files are commonly created by digital cameras, allowing the user to edit the image once they transfer the file from the camera to their PC. The file that is migrated to the PC contains the image exactly as it was captured by the camera, without loss of quality and without compression.

The .raw file extension may also be given to RAW audio files. These files contain unprocessed audio files that can be modified and edited on a computer."

In Lightroom you can adjust color saturation, exposure clarity and more

 

[Tabe]

soufiej, which programs do you think would be easiest to use? I have tried a few of the online editors and the software edit the camera came with. I find the software editor is useless. It doesn't do much in the way of editing anything.

The photo of the star ordiment I used a website editor program called Pixlr. It was decent but I found it didn't have very many settings.

As others have mentioned, much of the issue here is white balance. You'll really want to shoot in RAW to be able to correct white balance issues later with an editor program.

Personally, I use Photoshop Elements 10 for all of my editing. It doesn't play well with Canon's .CR2 RAW file format so I have to use Adobe's converter to get everything into .DNG format before editing but that is very easy to do. Once there, Elements is easy to use. It really isn't that hard at all. 99% of the stuff you'll want to do is very easy. When you load a RAW photo, it'll automatically open in a dialog with a bunch of adjustments for white balance, sharpness, lighting, and color. After that, you click to "open" it in the full editor. From there, you can easily fix red eye (pick the red eye tool, draw a square around the eye, boom, done), delete unwanted objects (click the healing brush, draw over the problem area, boom, done) and so on. It really is very easy to use and can generate fantastic results. If you need a guiding hand to use it, I recommend Scott Kelby's book "Photoshop Elements 10 for Digital Photographers".

NOTE: Elements 10 is not the newest version of the app, it's just what I have. It can probably be purchased dirt cheap or you can use the newest version by subscribing to Adobe's services.

 

[waday]

Welcome! Enjoy your new camera!

Have to agree with @soufiej, though. You should learn the basics first. Once you have those down, then start to move beyond the basics--like RAW and editing.

 

[spiralout462]

Id recommend lightroom. Its not overly complicated to learn the basics, and is extremely powerful. Also a great tool for organizing your photos.

Is this a software that I have to purchase or is it a website editor?

Hello Noob,

I also use a T5i. For post processing I use Lightroom primarily but I have been playing around with the software that came with your camera. (Canon Photo Professional I believe). It seems to be plenty capable especially when editing .cr2 or RAW files. There are times when shooting in .jpg is appropriate, but I worry that if I get a shot worth framing I wont be able to make the best possible print with a .jpg. Therefore I sacrifice disk space for image quality. Like everything else in photography it is another "trade off".

 

[soufiej]

soufiej, which programs do you think would be easiest to use? I have tried a few of the online editors and the software edit the camera came with. I find the software editor is useless. It doesn't do much in the way of editing anything.

The photo of the star ordiment I used a website editor program called Pixlr. It was decent but I found it didn't have very many settings.

As others have mentioned, much of the issue here is white balance. You'll really want to shoot in RAW to be able to correct white balance issues later with an editor program.

Personally, I use Photoshop Elements 10 for all of my editing. It doesn't play well with Canon's .CR2 RAW file format so I have to use Adobe's converter to get everything into .DNG format before editing but that is very easy to do. Once there, Elements is easy to use. It really isn't that hard at all. 99% of the stuff you'll want to do is very easy. When you load a RAW photo, it'll automatically open in a dialog with a bunch of adjustments for white balance, sharpness, lighting, and color. After that, you click to "open" it in the full editor. From there, you can easily fix red eye (pick the red eye tool, draw a square around the eye, boom, done), delete unwanted objects (click the healing brush, draw over the problem area, boom, done) and so on. It really is very easy to use and can generate fantastic results. If you need a guiding hand to use it, I recommend Scott Kelby's book "Photoshop Elements 10 for Digital Photographers".

NOTE: Elements 10 is not the newest version of the app, it's just what I have. It can probably be purchased dirt cheap or you can use the newest version by subscribing to Adobe's services.

I readily admit to be an old codger when it comes to image processing systems. Simply reading the above post makes my head hurt and my thoughts turn to, "WTF?!!!" . The idea I have to use a program to move my photos' data to another program is, IMO, absolutely the beginnings of insanity. The , "It's just that simple", and the, "Bingbang, whalla polloosa, I can generate fantastic results", sounds like one of the twenty two minute with commercials home improvement shows which are everywhere I look on my satellite TV's viewing options. Sort of like, why do I have "Amercia's Top 250" package of channels when a full 125 of them are about nothing other than redoing old houses, old cars or old recipes or watching old TV shows I've already seen forty years ago? I end up watching six channels - when the darned thing works. Several years ago I had a "tech" from D---------k walk out without finishing the install because he couldn't understand the way the thing worked. Fortunately, I sold the system, I talked the jargon, I knew the way the system should operate and after he aligned the new dish up on the roof and ran the wires through my attic, I did get the system up and running. But, still ... ?! Why???!!!

While my advice to the op was to read about the various options she might explore, I fully understand just reading the dozens upon dozens of dozens of search engine blurbs which describe these dozens upon dozens of the various options is like reading some weirdly written mystery novel filled with high tech jargon and serial intrigue which never has a payoff. Sort of like "24' where everything is so unrealistically simple and filled with such leaps of logic as to be comical. Then you make your pick, load it and it's sort of like watching "Resurrection" where you wait and wait and wait and wait and none of it ever makes any sense and you always find yourself asking, "Why did I waste another hour?". When will something actually happen on that show???!!! How do you OK a program without a story? This makes no sense to someone who grew up on "The Dick VanDyke Show" and "My Mother the Car". I begin to think I should be like Barney and only need one bullet.

And, while I fully understand the sincere desire to provide information to the op, such a response can, IMO, be taken as having been written in some foreign language and encouraging me to climb to the top of the nearest mountain and jump off, most especially for an op who asked, "Why are my shots yellow?" So, Tabe, I'm not saying anything about your response, just considering the fact taking a photo is no longer a function of just getting things right in the camera. Even that is impossibly complicated nowdays for many of us who grew up with $10 point and shoots which didn't even allow for a wild hare decision to use 200 ASA film.

I'm just now returning to photography after a long lay off generated primarily by my frustrations with computer software and their absolute necessity for turning out an image I can hold in my hands. And that's all I really want, a photograph I can hold in my hands and not be forced to view on my computer monitor. Years ago I could take that photo and put it in my wallet. Now I have to have even more bing bang zoom software, usually duplicates, just to move it to my smart phone which doesn't share the same operating system as my laptop. WTF?! Personally, I don't even want to share anything over "social media". Who would care that I saw a robin today? If they do, I'm more concerned about them than I am about most everything else. When I had a telephone with a cord and a rotary dial I never once told anyone I saw a robin today. Why is that big news today? Why does it need to be shared with twenty "friends"? They're just going to delete the thing anyway. What is the point?

And, quite honestly, when I load an image processing program into my computer for a trial run - as I did yesterday - I am somewhere between, "Why did I do this again?", and throwing the whole darned thing into the trash or against a wall. When I read comments such as your's, Tabe, I think, "Yeah, this is simple ... for a six year old who knows nothing but computer stuff", and, "Why is the idea of getting a photo I can see so @%*^**&#!!*& difficult nowdays?"

Personally, I absolutely and from the bottom of my soul detest sitting in front of a computer taking what I consider to be a"good shot", extracting that data from my camera, transferring it invisibly and possibly not so successfully to the computer while hoping against hope the data actually operates as data and shows up as an image and then facing the absolute necessity that I spend another (largely wasted) amount of time first deciding on which software to download (get the one that doesn't have the virus attached or you'll be spending a lot more time and a lot more frustration) just to try, while learning what seems to be a completely weird and darned near incomprehensible menu system that doesn't do what I want it to do and continues to tell me I must do something to something which I cannot find on my computer before I can "fix" that good shot. If it was a good shot, why must I "fix" it in the first place? That has always been the ridiculousness of "digital" photography to me.

I can think of little as torturous in everyday life as reading about image processing programs. Except, actually trying an image processing program.

Trying to find the basic "help" files as I download a new possibility and wading and wading and wading through all the stuff that doesn't assist me one little diddly bit because I don't know and don't want to know what the hell a "brush" is. And I certainly don't want my good shot ruined because I experimented with a brush. Paying a monthly fee to do this? What is this, some kind of Catholic limbo I've stumbled into which will only allow me to emerge from the other side and into the promised land once I've paid for an entire lifetime of petty sins?! Then there's always, no matter which software I am trying out, Adobe or Java or Windows popping up yet another screen in the middle of the process insisting I download yet another revision, update or security blanket to their program before I can progress and, then, once the download is completed, finding out the image I had been "fixing" has somehow disappeared, never to be found again and certainly never to be "processed" again from the same point. So, after finding the "photo" data once again, I begin again with the entire $%%#@(**& process hoping just this once I can get to the point where I can actually print out a tiny little 4X6 sheet of paper. Something to actually look at and to call my own, not some group of invisible, magical data points in someone else's software which I can only see with the aid of a computer. And, what? I find I have not yet calibrated my monitor and my printer to the "correct" RGB standard. Or I shot in Jpeg because that's what my camera selected for me rather than what I wanted. And everyone on the forum is telling me I need to shoot in RAW because that's what makes me a good photographer.

WTF?! THAT"s what makes me a good photographer?!

*&^&*^&%$%$#@@#%&*%$$%^#@!!!!!!!!!

But, I can't because some other BS has prevented it from happening and I have no ^%%&^$#@* clue as to what it is or how to get around it.

I really, simply have no real idea how consumer photography reached this point where I can't check all the things I need to check with my camera (four, maybe five tops), aim and take a photo which I can actually call my own and not the work of some geeky genius who wrote the $@!((*& processing program. Between everything the camera now does which actually prohibits and discourages me from getting a correct group of data points (crimeny, it's just 1's and 0's for goodness sake!) , to all the work I must do before AND after I transfer the data into a computer, I am astounded photography beyond a simple smart phone snapshot kept only on my smartphone is still seen as worth the effort by so many people. And why I suspect a lot of rather pricey DSLR's are going to end up gathering dust on a shelf in a backroom closet.

".DNG"?!

That alone sounds like a band I wouldn't listen to.

(PS: This was posted using a Google Chromebook. No, it's not a "real" computer because all it does is allow me to get on the internet. But it does so in one second from the time I open the cover and it loads websites in about two seconds, at the most, from the time I click on a link. If I had tried this on my Windows based laptop or PC, I would still be waiting for either of them to reach the point where I could even open up a browser.)

 

[Tabe]

Apparently there's now an update that lets Elements open CR2 files directly but it requires a later version of Elements than what I have:

Photoshop Elements 11 not recognizing my CR2 file Adobe Community