Caution 1
One thing to keep in mind when redefining the behavior of controls including other controls that can be modified within the Custom Functions menus is that any non-standard customization you do will definitely be confusing to others who use your camera, and may even confuse you if you've forgotten that you've changed a control from its default function. 0 Disabled. This is the default during shooting no action is taken. If you have used the T1i, you know that this choice activated the Quick...
Flash Firing
Use this option to enable or disable the built-in or accessory electronic flash in Creative Zone modes. When disabled, the flash cannot fire even if you accidentally elevate it, or have an accessory flash attached and turned on when using the Creative Zone modes. There are several situations in which you might prefer to totally disable the T2i's built-in and accessory flash. Flash might be a no-no when shooting in sensitive environments, such as concerts, in museums, or during religious...
Image Editors
Image editors are general purpose photo-editing applications that can do color correction, tonal modifications, retouching, combining of several images into one, and usually include tools for working with RAW files and reducing noise. So, you'll find programs like those listed here good for all-around image manipulation. The leading programs are Adobe Photoshop Photoshop Elements. Photoshop is the serious photographer's number one choice for image editing, and Elements is an excellent option...
Watch Out For Amp Noise
When exposures extend past 30 seconds into the realm of several minutes or more all digital cameras are theoretically susceptible to a phenomenon called amp noise, which manifests itself as a purplish glow, often around the edges of an image, creating an aurora borealis-style ghost effect. Amp noise happens when the sensor heats up during a long exposure, and some cameras fall victim more readily than others. The Rebel T2i resists this phenomenon better than most dSLRs, but you should be aware...
TimeLapseInterval Photography
Who hasn't marveled at a time-lapse photograph of a flower opening, a series of shots of the moon marching across the sky, or one of those extreme time-lapse picture sets showing something that takes a very, very long time, such as a building under construction. You probably won't be shooting such construction shots, unless you have a spare T2i you don't need for a few months or are willing to go through the rigmarole of figuring out how to set up your camera in precisely the same position...
What Can Go Wrong
There are lots of things that can go wrong with your memory card, but the ones that aren't caused by human stupidity are statistically very rare. Yes, a memory card's internal bit bin or controller can suddenly fail due to a manufacturing error or some inexplicable event caused by old age. However, if your memory card works for the first week or two that you own it, it should work forever. There's really not a lot that can wear out. The typical memory card is rated for a Mean Time Between...
Ehs
If you want to keep an image from being accidentally erased either with the Erase button or by using the Erase images menu , you can mark that image for protection. To protect one or more images, press the Menu button and choose Protect. Then use the left right cross keys to view the image to be protected. Press the Set button to apply the protection. A key icon will appear at the upper edge of the information display while still in the protection screen, and when reviewing that image later see...
Soft Boxes
Soft boxes are large square or rectangular devices that may resemble a square umbrella with a front cover, and produce a similar lighting effect. They can extend from a few feet square to massive boxes that stand five or six feet tall virtually a wall of light. With a flash unit or two inside a soft box, you have a large, semi-directional light source that's very diffuse and very flattering for portraiture and other people photography. Soft boxes are also handy for photographing shiny objects....
Activating Live View
Once you've enabled Live View, you can continue taking pictures normally through the T2i's viewfinder. When you're ready to activate Live View, press the dedicated Live View button on the back of the camera, to the immediate right of the viewfinder window. The mirror will flip up, and the sensor image will appear on the LCD. Here are some things you should keep in mind when Live View is active Shooting functions don't interrupt. You can change settings or review images normally when in Live...
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The drive modes include left to right single shooting, continuous, 10-second delay remote, 2-second delay, and self-timer continuous which takes multiple shots when the self-timer's delay has elapsed . Working with the EOS T2i's built-in flash as well as external flash units like the Canon 580EX II deserves a chapter of its own, and I'm providing one see Chapter 7 . But the built-in flash is easy enough to work with that you can begin using it right away, either to provide the main lighting of...
What Lenses Can Do for You
A saner approach to expanding your lens collection is to consider what each of your options can do for you and then choosing the type of lens that will really boost your creative opportunities. Here's a general guide to the sort of capabilities you can gain by adding a lens to your repertoire. Wider perspective. Your 18-55mm f 3.5-5.6 or 17-85mm f 4-5.6 lens has served you well for moderate wide-angle shots. Now you find your back is up against a wall and you can't take a step backwards to take...
Using Multiple Light Sources
Once you gain control over the qualities and effects you get with a single light source, you'll want to graduate to using multiple light sources. Using several lights allows you to shape and mold the illumination of your subjects to provide a variety of effects, from backlighting to side lighting to more formal portrait lighting. You can start simply with several incandescent light sources, bounced off umbrellas or reflectors that you construct. Or you can use more flexible multiple electronic...
Setting AF Point
You can change which of the nine focus points the Canon EOS Rebel T2i uses to calculate correct focus, or allow the camera to select the point for you. As I mentioned in Chapter 1, in A-DEP, or any of the Basic Zone shooting modes, the focus point is always selected automatically by the camera. In the other Creative Zone modes, you can allow the camera to select the focus point automatically, or you can specify which focus point should be used. To review, there are several methods to set the...
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dark flash photos with telephoto lenses, 242 dark frame images, 122 dark frame subtraction, 164 darkness, long exposures for, 210 211 data recovery software, 310 311 data verification feature, 128 Data Verification Kit, 128 Datacolor's Spyder products, 84 dates and times Camera functions display, 52 jumping through images by date, 46 setting, 14-16 Set-up menu options, 15, 113 dawn, color temperature at, 257 daylight, 257 color temperature of, 256-257 white balance, 77 window light, working...
Working with Short Exposures
You can have a lot of fun exploring the kinds of pictures you can take using very brief exposure times, whether you decide to take advantage of the action-stopping capabilities of your built-in or external electronic flash or work with the Canon EOS Rebel T2i's faster shutter speeds. Here are a few ideas to get you started Take revealing images. Fast shutter speeds can help you reveal the real subject behind the fa ade, by freezing constant motion to capture an enlightening moment in time....
A Tiny Slice of Time
Exposures that seem impossibly brief can reveal a world we didn't know existed. In the 1930s, Dr. Harold Edgerton, a professor of electrical engineering at MIT, pioneered high-speed photography using a repeating electronic flash unit he patented called the stroboscope. As the inventor of the electronic flash, he popularized its use to freeze objects in motion, and you've probably seen his photographs of bullets piercing balloons and drops of milk forming a coronet-shaped splash. Electronic...
Light Stands
Both electronic flash and incandescent lamps can benefit from light stands. These are lightweight, tripod-like devices but without a swiveling or tilting head that can be set on the floor, tabletops, or other elevated surfaces and positioned as needed. Light stands should be strong enough to support an external lighting unit, up to and including a relatively heavy flash with soft box or umbrella reflectors. You want the supports to be capable of raising the lights high enough to be effective....
Avoiding Telephoto Lens Problems
Many of the problems that telephoto lenses pose are really just challenges and not that difficult to overcome. Here is a list of the seven most common picture maladies and suggested solutions. Symptom flat faces in portraits. Head-and-shoulders portraits of humans tend to be more flattering when a focal length of 50mm to 85mm is used. Longer focal lengths compress the distance between features like noses and ears, making the face look wider and flat. A wide-angle might make noses look huge and...
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Eclipse solution, 322 Edgerton, Harold, 201-202, 204 Edison, Thomas, 258 editing images, 285-300 Picture Style Editor, 93-95, 285-286 EF lenses, 223, 226 bayonet mount, 225 EF-S lenses compared, 225-226 mounting, 10-11 EF 15mm f 2.8 Autofocus Fisheye lens, 230 EF 24-70mm f 2.8L USM Autofocus Lens, 223 EF 24-85mm f 3.5-4.5 USM Autofocus Wide-Angle Telephoto Zoom lens, 222 EF 24-105mm f 4L IS USM Zoom lens, 232 Autofocus Wide-Angle Telephoto Zoom lens, 222, 232 EF 28-135mm f 3.5-5.6 IS USM...
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Program Making EV Manual Basic Zone Creative Adjusting Exposure with ISO Bracketing and Merge to HDR 159 Dealing with Fixing Exposures with Advanced Shooting and Movie Shooting with Your Canon EOS Rebel T2i 550D_169 How Focus Phase Contrast Getting into Focus Adding Circles of Making Sense of Your Autofocus Mode Setting AF Introducing Live What You Can Cannot Do with Live View 184 Enabling Live Activating Live Working with Live Previewing and Making Focusing in Live Shooting Movie Capturing...
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Canon makes interpreting current Picture Style settings and applying changes very easy. As you saw in Figures 3.24 and 3.25, the current settings of the visible Picture Style options are shown as numeric values on the menu screen. Some camera vendors use word descriptions, like Sharp, Extra Sharp or Vivid, More Vivid that are difficult to relate to. The T2i's settings, on the other hand, are values on uniform scales, with seven steps from 1 to 7 for sharpness, and plus minus four steps...
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attached lo the camera has been added. attached lo the camera has been added. 5. Select the category containing the lens you want to register from the panels at the top of the new screen, then place a check mark next to all the lenses you'd like to register in the camera. 6. Click OK to send the data from your computer to the T2i and register your lenses. 7. When a newly registered lens is mounted on the camera, you will be able to activate the anti-vignetting feature for that lens from the...
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Live mode Face detection Live mode Quick mode indicator Autoexposure bracketing range Some or all of this information can be displayed when you're using Live View. Live mode Face detection Live mode Quick mode indicator Autoexposure bracketing range Not all the information shown in the figure will appear on the screen at the same time. You can adjust the amount of info by pressing the DISP button, exactly as you can with the shooting information screen, as explained in Chapter 2. As you press...
Glossary
Here are some terms you might encounter while reading this book or working with your Canon EOS Rebel T2i. additive primary colors The red, green, and blue hues that are used alone or in combinations to create all other colors that you capture with a digital camera, view on a computer monitor, or work with in an image-editing program, such as Photoshop. See also CMYK color model. A-DEP A Creative Zone mode that analyzes your scene when you're not using flash, and attempts to choose an f stop and...
A White Balance Library
Shoot a selection of blank-card images under a variety of lighting conditions on a spare memory card. If you want to recycle one of the color temperatures you've stored, insert the card and set the custom white balance to that of one of the images in your white balance library, as described above. White balance shift allows you to dial in a white balance color bias along the blue amber yellow dimensions, and or magenta green scale. In other words, you can set your color balance so that it is a...
Sorting The Motor Drives
Incorporating the autofocus motor inside the lens was an innovative move by Canon, and this allowed the company to produce better and more sophisticated lenses as technology became available to upgrade the focusing system. As a result, you'll find four different types of motors in Canon-designed lenses, each with cost and practical considerations. AFD Arc-form drive and Micromotor MM drives are built around tiny versions of electromagnetic motors, which generally use gear trains to produce the...
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Formerly tucked away in the Custom Function menu of this camera's predecessor, the T1i as C.Fn II-07 , the Auto Lighting Optimizer has been promoted in the T2i as a full-fledged menu entry. Featured status should help you avoid overlooking this useful capability, which provides a partial fix for images that are too dark or flat. Such photos typically have low contrast, and the Auto Lighting Optimizer improves them as you shoot by increasing both the brightness and contrast as required. The...
Biasing Your White Balance
White balance bracketing is confusing enough, until you start adding some bias to the equation. Fortunately, the concept is easy to understand with a little explanation. As I noted above, white balance bracketing usually proceeds along a single axis, either the blue amber horizontal or green magenta vertical axis . If you stick to those directions, the bracketing dot indicators will confine themselves to the thicker center lines that bisect the grid shown in Figure 3.19. You can move the...
IrfanView
At the low free end of the price scale is IrfanView, a Windows freeware program you can download at www.irfanview.com. It can read many common RAW photo formats. It's a quick way to view RAW files just drag and drop to the IrfanView window and make fast changes to the unprocessed file. You can crop, rotate, or correct your image, and do some cool things like swap the colors around red for blue, blue for green, and so forth to create false color pictures. The price is right, and IrfanView has...
Clear settings Firmware Ver 1
Firmware upgrades are used most frequently to fix bugs in the software, and much less frequently to add or enhance features. For example, previous firmware upgrades for Canon cameras have mended things like incorrect color temperature reporting when using specific Canon Speedlites, or problems communicating with memory cards under certain conditions. The exact changes made to the firmware are generally spelled out in the firmware release announcement. You can examine the remedies provided and...
Air Cleaning
Your first attempts at cleaning your sensor should always involve gentle blasts of air. Many times, you'll be able to dislodge dust spots, which will fall off the sensor and, with luck, out of the mirror box. Attempt one of the other methods only when you've already tried air cleaning and it didn't remove all the dust. Here are some tips for doing air cleaning. Use a clean, powerful air bulb. Your best bet is bulb cleaners designed for the job, like the one shown in Figure 9.6. Smaller bulbs,...
Screen color
indefinitely or until 30 minutes have passed. However, even if the camera has shut itself off, if the power switch remains in the On position, you can bring the camera back to life by pressing the shutter button halfway, or the DISP, Playback, or Set buttons. There are three settings and several techniques you can use to help you stretch the longevity of your T2i's battery. The first setting is the Review time option described earlier under the Shooting 1 menu. That big three-inch LCD uses a...
Avoiding Dust
Of course, the easiest way to protect your sensor from dust is to prevent it from settling on the sensor in the first place. Some Canon lenses come with rubberized seals around the lens mounts that help keep dust from infiltrating, but you'll find that dust will still find a way to get inside. Here are my stock tips for eliminating the problem before it begins. Clean environment. Avoid working in dusty areas if you can do so. Hah Serious photographers will take this one with a grain of salt,...
Guide Numbers
Guide numbers, usually abbreviated GN, are a way of specifying the power of an electronic flash in a way that can be used to determine the right f stop to use at a particular shooting distance and ISO setting. In fact, before automatic flash units became prevalent, the GN was actually used to do just that. A GN is usually given as a pair of numbers for both feet and meters that represent the range at ISO 100. For example, the Rebel T2i's built-in flash has a GN of 13 43 meters feet at ISO 100....
Making Light Work for You
Successful photographers and artists have an intimate understanding of the importance of light in shaping an image. Rembrandt was a master of using light to create moods and reveal the character of his subjects. Artist Thomas Kinkade's official tagline is Painter of Light. The late Dean Collins, co-founder of Finelight Studios, revolutionized how a whole generation of photographers learned and used lighting. I once attended a seminar called Captivated by the Light, run by photo guru Ed Pierce....
Studio Flash
If you're serious about using multiple flash units, a studio flash set-up might be more practical. The traditional studio flash is a multi-part unit, consisting of a flash head that mounts on your light stand, and is tethered to an AC or sometimes battery power supply. A single power supply can feed two or more flash heads at a time, with separate control over the output of each head. When they are operating offAC power, studio flash don't have to be frugal with the juice, and are often...
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to produce a single image that has an amazing amount of detail throughout the scene's entire tonal range. I call this technique a fad because the reason it exists in the first place is due to a temporary, I hope defect in current digital camera sensors. It's presently impossible to capture the full range of brightness that we perceive digital cameras, including the EOS T2i, can't even grab the full range of brightness that film can see, as I showed you in Figures 4.1 and 4.2 at the beginning of...
Digital Photo Professional
While far from a Photoshop replacement, Digital Photo Professional is a useful image editing program that helps you organize, trim, correct, and print images. You can make RAW adjustments, correct tonal curves, color tone, color saturation, sharpness, as well as brightness and contrast. Especially handy are the recipes that can be developed and saved so that a given set of corrections can be kept separate from the file itself, and, if desired, applied to other images see Figure 8.8 . Digital...
Determining Exposure
Calculating the proper exposure for an electronic flash photograph is a bit more complicated than determining the settings by continuous light. The right exposure isn't simply a function of how far away your subject is which the T2i can figure out based on the autofocus distance that's locked in just prior to taking the picture . Various objects reflect more or less light at the same distance so, obviously, the camera needs to measure the amount of light reflected back and through the lens....
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Select a focus point and selection mode from the AF point selection screen. Or choose the focus point while looking through the viewfinder. Or choose the focus point while looking through the viewfinder. inm n r r 2. .11 . I ti 2 iso i rnn r n UJIJIJ j. j I IIJU ijij There are a few other settings you can make if you're feeling ambitious, but don't feel ashamed if you postpone using these features until you've racked up a little more experience with your Rebel T2i. If you like, you can...
Diffusing and Softening the Light
Direct light can be harsh and glaring, especially if you're using the flash built into your camera, or an auxiliary flash mounted in the hot shoe and pointed directly at your subject. The first thing you should do is stop using direct light unless you're looking for a stark, contrasty appearance as a creative effect . There are a number of simple things you can do with both continuous and flash illumination. Use window light. Light coming in a window can be soft and flattering, and a good...
Liquid Cleaning
Unfortunately, you'll often encounter really stubborn dust spots that can't be removed with a blast of air or flick of a brush. These spots may be combined with some grease or a liquid that causes them to stick to the sensor filter's surface. In such cases, liquid cleaning with a swab may be necessary. During my first clumsy attempts to clean my own sensor, I accidentally got my blower bulb tip too close to the sensor, and some sort of deposit from the tip of the bulb ended up on the sensor. I...
Picture Style Editor
The Picture Style Editor, shown in Figure 8.1, allows you to create your own custom Picture Styles, or edit existing styles, including the Standard, Landscape, Faithful, and other predefined settings already present in your Rebel T2i. You can change sharpness, contrast, color saturation, and color tone and a lot more and then save the modifications as a PF2 file that can be uploaded to the camera, or used by Digital Photo Professional described later in this chapter to modify a RAW image as it...
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back view of camera, 39-46 backgrounds, 283 backing up files, 62 backlighting, 133 barn doors, 284 flash with, 27, 267-268 focus point in, 23 icons, 1 ISO sensitivity in, 156 on Mode Dial, 18 Picture Styles for, 84 batteries, 3 charging, 9 firmware upgrades, charged batteries for, 304 cover door, 47-48 Creative Auto mode screen display, 155 firmware upgrades, charged batteries for, 304 initial set-up for, 6-9 Live View information display on, 188 power use with, 185 for monolights, 281 for...
Evaluative metering
Spot metering. Exposure is calculated from a smaller central spot, about 3.8 percent of the image area. Center-weighted averaging metering. The T2i meters the entire scene, but gives the most emphasis to the central area of the frame. You'll find a detailed description of each of these modes in Chapter 4. You can easily switch between automatic and manual focus by moving the AF MF switch on the lens mounted on your camera. However, if you're using a Creative Zone shooting mode, you'll still...
Best Of Both Worlds
As I mentioned, if you're using a Basic Zone mode, the T2i selects the sRGB color space automatically. In addition, you may choose to set the sRGB color space with this menu entry to apply that gamut to all your Creative Zone photos as well. But, in either case, you can still easily obtain Adobe RGB versions of your photos if you need them. Just shoot using RAW JPEG. You'll end up with sRGB JPEGs suitable for output on your own printer, but you can still extract an Adobe RGB version from the...
Zoom or Prime
Zoom lenses have changed the way serious photographers take pictures. One of the reasons that I own 12 SLR film bodies is that in ancient times it was common to mount a different fixed focal length prime lens on various cameras and take pictures with two or three cameras around your neck or tucked in a camera case so you'd be ready to take a long shot or an intimate close-up or wide-angle view on a moment's notice, without the need to switch lenses. It made sense at the time to have a half...
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Picture Styles are extremely flexible. Canon has set the parameters for the five predefined color Picture Styles and the single monochrome Picture Style to suit the needs of most photographers. But you can adjust any of those canned Picture Styles to settings you prefer. Better yet, you can use those three User Definition files to create brand new styles that are all your own. If you want rich, bright colors to emulate Velvia film or the work of legendary photographer Pete Turner, you can build...
Creative Zone Flash
When you're using a Creative Zone mode, you'll have to judge for yourself when flash might be useful, and flip it up yourself by pressing the Flash button on the side of the viewfinder hump. The behavior of the internal flash varies, depending on which Creative Zone mode you're using. P A-DEP. In these modes, the T2i fully automates the exposure process, giving you subtle fill flash effects in daylight, and fully illuminating your subject under dimmer lighting conditions. The camera selects a...
Snoots and Barn Doors
These fit over the flash unit and direct the light at your subject. Snoots are excellent for converting a flash unit into a hair light, while barn doors give you enough control over the illumination by opening and closing their flaps that you can use another flash as a background light, with the capability of feathering the light exactly where you want it on the background. A barn door unit is shown in Figure 7.23. Snoots and barn doors allow you to modulate the light from a flash or lamp, and...