What lens for what type of shot.

[Kronos]

Been a while since I posted here as a extended bout of ill health put everything on hold and in fact I have forgotten most of what I learned, which wasn't much, about my first foray into DSLR cameras and photography.

So first things first I have a Canon EOS 1100D these lens.

EFS 55-250
50mm
18-55
Auto Focus AF Macro Extension Tube Mount
Digital high definition 0.45x super wide angle with macro.

The last is particularly baffling but what situations should I use which lens?

Although I have bought a Dummies book covering the 1100D I am having great difficulty getting away from fully auoto and understanding 'The Exposure Triangle.'

Noobie stuff I know but be gentle with me.

[MrB]

You might enjoy starting to learn by using this free software -

http://camerasim.com/apps/camera-simulator/

Go to the link and firstly scroll down the page to read about the controls. Then just play around by adjusting them, to observe and develop understanding of their effects on the image produced.

Cheers.
Philip

[Shadowman]

Glenn,

Nothing wrong with staying on full auto for awhile, just learn to judge the quality of your work by the settings chosen by the camera. Are you capturing an image that pleases you, do you feel the image needs adjusting? Analyzing the image is one way of better understanding the "exposure triangle" and how knowing which settings will get you the image you desire.

[Saorsa]

It's not really a triangle, it's just a three factor problem like Time, Speed, Distance but it can be made a lot more complicated. You just need to solve it for some particular factor. For example, it's dark and you need either shutter speed or ISO values for the widest aperture you can set. Or, you want a small aperture to increase DOF for a macro shot or a high shutter speed to stop action.

SO, it's like answering the question "What time do I need to leave to get to a place 60 miles away at 3PM if the speed limit is 60 MPH? What if the limit is 30 MPH? How fast do I need to drive to get there by 3PM? is a different question based on the same values.

[davidedric]

Hi Glenn, welcome back.

As has been said, nothing wrong with full auto while you get to grips with things. Do, though, look at what settings the camera chooses for you.

You should be able to move to P, Program, mode quite easily. It works rather like auto in that the camera still tries to expose correctly, but it gives a bit more control. For example, you could change the aperture, and see what the camera chooses for shutter speed and iso.

I hope you have read the tutorial here https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...a-exposure.htm

Good luck, and please keep asking,

Dave

[Kronos]

Cheers all but could I have some info on the lenses or at least a link to something that explains how or in what situation I would use the listed lenses?

[xpatUSA]

I have a Canon EOS 1100D [and] these lens.

EFS 55-250
50mm
18-55
Auto Focus AF Macro Extension Tube Mount
Digital high definition 0.45x super wide angle with macro.

The last is particularly baffling but what situations should I use which lens?

Cheers all but could I have some info on the lenses or at least a link to something that explains how or in what situation I would use the listed lenses?

Item by item:

EFS 55-250mm
A 5x zoom ratio with a long max focal length makes this a walk-around lens, especially if you are interested in wild life or caged lions.

50mm
A fixed focal length, close to your own vision, makes this your lens of choice for architectural shots or for posed people.

18-55mm
A lower zoom ratio but wider at the low end makes this your candidate for street shots, both people and architecture.

Auto Focus AF Macro Extension Tube Mount
Simply lets you get closer to the caged lion and still be able to focus on it's fangs - but you lose the ability to focus from a much safer distance.

Digital high definition 0.45x super wide angle with macro.
I think this is a "filter" which you add to your lens thus, for example, making your 18mm zoom setting more like 10mm (sic). It would have the opposite effect to the aforementioned tube thingy but, apparently, some magic inside allows a closer focusing distance than would be expected otherwise.

Although I have bought a Dummies book covering the 1100D I am having great difficulty getting away from fully auoto and understanding 'The Exposure Triangle.'

The so-called 'Exposure Triangle' is designed to confuse, IMO - since the ISO setting has absolutely nothing to do with the exposure at the sensor. Real exposure, in lux-seconds, depends directly only on the aperture and shutter settings. I would advise you to completely ignore the 'Exposure Triangle' - it will simplify your life tremendously

Twiddling the ISO only changes the metering which, in turn, tells you (or the camera's auto-exposure function) to change the real exposure so as to get a pretty review image on the camera LCD. Owners of ISO-less cameras who habitually shoot in manual (e.g. myself) will understand this statement more than those who just let the camera make the choices.

[Polar01]

Glenn there is no listing of what lens to use under what situation, you use the lens that will give the look and feel that your vision sees.

Cheers: Allan

[rpcrowe]

I suggest that you will learn more and more quickly if you substitute Programmed Automatic ( P ) for full automatic ( A ) shooting.

Using P, your camera will do everything for you except selecting the ISO. Selecting the ISO at which you will be shooting is one of the first choices that most photographers will make (except when shooting in auto-ISO mode - which is not full automatic and which not all cameras have the capability of using).

The P exposure setting will select the shutter speed and f/stop which the camera deems is best for the shot. However, with the P setting, you can adjust the shutter speed and/or f/stop and the camera will adjust the other variable.

You can take a series of shots of any scene and work your way through the different f/stop - shutter speed combinations all of which should give decent exposure but, a different look to the image.

You could also set your camera on P and work with different ISO settings to see the difference between shooting with a low ISO and a very high ISO.

A way to learn the impact of differences in exposure would be to select Auto Exposure Bracketing and burst mode. That way your camera will shoot three shots (one as the meter reads, one at below the meter reading, and one above the meter reading).

You can select the amount of exposure bracketing as well as the sequence of bracketing. I find it helpful to a new photographer to shoot in the following sequence: under - right on - over. That way when viewing your images they will be in that sequence.

As far as selecting the ISO for your first trials, I usually shoot at the lowest ISO which will give me the shutter speed and f/stop I deem reasonable. For average shots in bright light, I shoot with an ISO of around 100 to 200, for a bit lower light or when I want a faster shutter speed and/or smaller aperture I select ISO 400 (this will still give me excellent results with my Canon 7D and should also be quite adequate for good results from your 1100D. For lower light levers, I will experiment, always using the lowest ISO possible but, I am not afraid to boost the iSO in order to achieve the shutter speed I need for a sharp shot.

O.K. what lens do you use? There have been volumes written about this. Let me mention four ways I use longer focal lengths...

I like a longer focal length for head and shoulder portraits and will most often shoot these portraits between 100 and 200 mm which IMO gives a more flattering look to most faces.

I shot this at 176 mm @ f/11


Additionally, while most people have a knee-jerk reaction to grab a wide or ultra-wide focal length for landscape or scenic images. I like to also use a longer lens to isolate portions of a landscape and to flatten perspective...

I shot this at 120mm @ f/5


I will often use longer focal lengths and my widest aperture for street shooting, in order to separate my main subjects from the background by selective focus with a narrow depth of field.

I shot this using 200 mm @ f/4


For venues like some sports and airshows, the longest lens you have might just be the way to go.

This was shot at 280mm (a 70-200mm f/4L IS lens with a 1.4x TC)

[tclune]

My dad taught me the basics of photography many long years ago. His approach was to find the shot by walking around looking at what he wanted to photograph from as many angles and distances as he could, paying attention to foreground and background as well as the subject itself. Once he'd found the perspective that he was looking for, he would choose the focal length that he wanted which gave him the framing that he was after.
So, following his approach, you can ignore the lens entirely until you have the shot you want firmly in your mind and you are looking straight at it. Then, just choose the focal length that gets you the final crop you are looking for through the viewfinder. If you can get that far successfully, the nuances of aperture and shutter speed will be very manageable. His approach is still the only one that actually makes sense to me. As always, YMMV.

[Manfred M]

My dad taught me the basics of photography many long years ago. His approach was to find the shot by walking around looking at what he wanted to photograph from as many angles and distances as he could, paying attention to foreground and background as well as the subject itself. Once he'd found the perspective that he was looking for, he would choose the focal length that he wanted which gave him the framing that he was after.
So, following his approach, you can ignore the lens entirely until you have the shot you want firmly in your mind and you are looking straight at it. Then, just choose the focal length that gets you the final crop you are looking for through the viewfinder. If you can get that far successfully, the nuances of aperture and shutter speed will be very manageable. His approach is still the only one that actually makes sense to me. As always, YMMV.

That was definitely the preferred way of doing serious photography in the film days, when the cost of film and processing were the main cost drivers, after the camera and lenses were acquired. These costs could (and did) quickly become the largest expenditures a photographer had. This was definitely my experience in those days.

Now that the cost of an individual image is virtually zero, after the cost of the equipment has been taken out of the equation, a different "best practice" has emerged, and is generally referred to as "working the scene". Very much the same way as your father studied the scene carefully, but this time, taking a shot quite frequently, using different apertures, shutter speeds and focal lengths.

In the film days, a heavy day of shooting for me would be 70 - 100 images. Today, I am easily doing three or four times as many and evaluating the images in my editing suite. There is no doubt in my mind I am getting better shots today than I did back in the film days, because I am taking more changes and not shooting as conservatively because of costs.

[inkista]

... I have a Canon EOS 1100D these lens.

EF-S 55-250
50mm
18-55
Auto Focus AF Macro Extension Tube Mount
Digital high definition 0.45x super wide angle with macro.

You use the macro extension tube if you need to get closer to a subject than your lenses will focus. The extension tube, will, however, cause you to lose focus capability at the far end of the range, and you will likely end up adjusting focus more by moving the camera, than using the camera's AF system.

Use the "super-wide-angle" filter if you want to go wider than a lens will let you. However, add-on filters typically add softness or chromatic aberration to a lens, so I'd suggest using this sparingly rather than as a standby that's on the lens all the time.

The 18-55 kit lens is your wide-to-normal "walkaround" lens, and is typically used as a vacation snapshot type lens. It goes wide on your crop-body 1100D, so it can be useful for landscapes, or getting close to a subject, or working indoors in smaller spaces. It's relatively slow, so don't expect to get a lot of background blur unless working at very close distances, and it won't be great for available-light shooting (indoors without a flash). But on a tripod, at 18mm, stopped down, it can be a terrific landscape/cityscape lens. And it does work well for casual/social portrait shooting.

The 50mm f/1.8 II is the most likely 50mm you've got (Canon actually makes a wide variety of 50mm lenses). This would be a 'normal' lens on a film camera (i.e., middling range field-of-view scene coverage, and has the magnification closest to your unaided eye--that is, if you open both eyes while shooting, what you see between your two eyes will match and composition is merely framing the shot). But the scene coverage is closer to what a short telephoto lens would get you on film, so may not be useful in smaller spaces or for more than head/torso portrait shots. The lens has a very wide max. aperture (f/1.8), so can be used for available light, and will render background blur more easily than your 18-55, so it's most common usage would probably be for portraits or available light shooting. However. This lens's sweet spot is closer to the f/4-5.6 range, and will be considerably sharper around f/2.8 than at f/1.8. And its autofocus accuracy is sometimes a little wonky in low light.

The EF-S 55-250 IS lens is usually the other lens in a "twin kit" and it's your telephoto zoom. This is a lens that will give you more "reach" than your other two lenses, so if you're shooting subjects that are farther away, such as wildlife or an event were you've got limited access, this lens can come in handy. It is a low-cost sports lens, but because the lens is not USM and it's 250mm, its autofocus performance won't be quite as fast or its reach as long as may be required to, say, shoot a football match from the bleachers. It can also be used for portraits.

Or landscapes for that matter. Lenses tend to often get used by a large number of people in similar ways, but in the end, you can use any lens to shoot any subject--it's up to you whether the effect is what you want or not. There are people who shoot portraits with ultrawides, and folks who shoot landscapes with telephotos and weddings with primes. I am a genuine eccentric in that I always have a fisheye lens in my bag to shoot panoramas. How you're going to use each lens, ultimately, will be up to you. Use them, get to know them, and you'll start to see which situations will lend themselves to each lens for you naturally. Don't worry so much about what each lens is "supposed" to be used for, so much as whether or not you can get what you want out of them.

[Kronos]

You use the macro extension tube if you need to get closer to a subject than your lenses will focus. The extension tube, will, however, cause you to lose focus capability at the far end of the range, and you will likely end up adjusting focus more by moving the camera, than using the camera's AF system.

Use the "super-wide-angle" filter if you want to go wider than a lens will let you. However, add-on filters typically add softness or chromatic aberration to a lens, so I'd suggest using this sparingly rather than as a standby that's on the lens all the time.

The 18-55 kit lens is your wide-to-normal "walkaround" lens, and is typically used as a vacation snapshot type lens. It goes wide on your crop-body 1100D, so it can be useful for landscapes, or getting close to a subject, or working indoors in smaller spaces. It's relatively slow, so don't expect to get a lot of background blur unless working at very close distances, and it won't be great for available-light shooting (indoors without a flash). But on a tripod, at 18mm, stopped down, it can be a terrific landscape/cityscape lens. And it does work well for casual/social portrait shooting.

The 50mm f/1.8 II is the most likely 50mm you've got (Canon actually makes a wide variety of 50mm lenses). This would be a 'normal' lens on a film camera (i.e., middling range field-of-view scene coverage, and has the magnification closest to your unaided eye--that is, if you open both eyes while shooting, what you see between your two eyes will match and composition is merely framing the shot). But the scene coverage is closer to what a short telephoto lens would get you on film, so may not be useful in smaller spaces or for more than head/torso portrait shots. The lens has a very wide max. aperture (f/1.8), so can be used for available light, and will render background blur more easily than your 18-55, so it's most common usage would probably be for portraits or available light shooting. However. This lens's sweet spot is closer to the f/4-5.6 range, and will be considerably sharper around f/2.8 than at f/1.8. And its autofocus accuracy is sometimes a little wonky in low light.

The EF-S 55-250 IS lens is usually the other lens in a "twin kit" and it's your telephoto zoom. This is a lens that will give you more "reach" than your other two lenses, so if you're shooting subjects that are farther away, such as wildlife or an event were you've got limited access, this lens can come in handy. It is a low-cost sports lens, but because the lens is not USM and it's 250mm, its autofocus performance won't be quite as fast or its reach as long as may be required to, say, shoot a football match from the bleachers. It can also be used for portraits.

Or landscapes for that matter. Lenses tend to often get used by a large number of people in similar ways, but in the end, you can use any lens to shoot any subject--it's up to you whether the effect is what you want or not. There are people who shoot portraits with ultrawides, and folks who shoot landscapes with telephotos and weddings with primes. I am a genuine eccentric in that I always have a fisheye lens in my bag to shoot panoramas. How you're going to use each lens, ultimately, will be up to you. Use them, get to know them, and you'll start to see which situations will lend themselves to each lens for you naturally. Don't worry so much about what each lens is "supposed" to be used for, so much as whether or not you can get what you want out of them.

That is very helpful, as are the other posts in answer to my question. Thanks.