# Rebel XTi Help



## BlakBird (Apr 25, 2014)

The company I work for is considering upgrading to a new camera but I want to make sure my camera is the problem before we put it on the company card. We're looking at a Canon 70D, 7D and a 6D.

I have the following equipment:
Rebel XTi | 18-55mm EFS IS | 55-250mm EFS IS | YN565EX Flash
My company also has a T3i for which I have yet to test out, however..using my camera I'm unable to achieve some of the results I've seen on the internet by other XTi users. 

I was pretty heavy into photography back in 2008-2011 and then it kind of fizzled out. 

Mainly I'm having an issue with focusing. I'm using the * AE lock for autofocus but when it comes down to the detail, it feels like it's lacking. 
Is it me or the camera??

By the way, I'm using ISO 1600 because almost anything below that is blurry regardless of flash.
Here's a few samples and specs. 

Specs for shot 1: f/4.5 1/13s ISO 1600 18-55 at 24mm w Ex Flash
Specs for shot 2: f/4.5 1/8s ISO 1600 18-55 at 27mm

(one moment, having an issue with the links.)


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## BlakBird (Apr 25, 2014)




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## ronlane (Apr 25, 2014)

Are you using a tripod? If not, the photos would be blurry because of camera shake. At those shutter speeds, you can help it. The first one, the flash is way to harsh and needs to be diffused. ISO 1600 is pushing the limits of the T3i, so I'm pretty sure that it's just past the line on the XTi.

For product shooting, you really need more than one light, so that you can blow out the back ground. (Not my area, but that is my take from what I've read about it.)


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## BlakBird (Apr 25, 2014)

No tripod. Eventually these shots will be for group portraits and corporate environment. To my understanding, the higher the ISO the more chances for noise. 
Also, I just watched a video on how to use external flash. (Never used one before until a few weeks ago so I'm very new to it.) I've been using the flash pointed upwards and slightly in front. The video recommended pointing the flash directly behind you or behind and up. <----Sound right?

Is the diffuser that piece of plastic that's tucked behind flash and folds over it?


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## Big Mike (Apr 25, 2014)

Welcome to the forum.

Throwing money at the problem (buying new gear) probably won't help.  It looks like it's simply a lack of knowledge & experience on your part.  
Luckily, that's pretty easy to fix.  I'd suggest investing some time/money on education.  There are many books & websites that could help, but the most efficient way would probably be to take a class or two.  Check your area for photography classes.  Many photographers are putting them on these days, or you could check your local community college etc.


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## Dao (Apr 25, 2014)

For that beer photo, try use a longer focal length and bounce the flash off the ceiling.  With longer focal length (i.e. 55mm) you will not be too close to the subject which will help light the subject.

If possible, get a little forwarding light by placing a little white card at the back of the flash head when pointing upward (just to expose a little bit to give some forwarding light).   

You should not need to raise the ISO to 1600.  I think 200 to 320 should be enough.  But of course you need to try it and see what settings works the best for you.

I think i will starts with ...  flash on full power, iso 200, f/5.6 and 1/160 @55mm


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## BlakBird (Apr 25, 2014)

Dao said:


> For that beer photo, try use a longer focal length and bounce the flash off the ceiling.  With longer focal length (i.e. 55mm) you will not be too close to the subject which will help light the subject.
> 
> If possible, get a little forwarding light by placing a little white card at the back of the flash head when pointing upward (just to expose a little bit to give some forwarding light).
> 
> ...



Alrighty, the boss is bringing in the T3i later. I'll be toying around with it. 
To answer the guy above again, I really don't think going to a community college is necessary for this. I think the problem is I've 1) forgotten some basics and 2) when I was learning, there were some blank spots that never quite got filled. Just my personal opinion.


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## KmH (Apr 25, 2014)

It looks like your main problem is the lighting, or rather your lack of photographic lighting knowledge.

An inexpensive and good place to start addressing that is - Light Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting

The first 2/3 of that book covers the fundamentals of lighting products and the last 1/3 covers the fundamentals of lighting portraits of people.

Often people are disappointed when they upgrade their gear and discover little if any improvement in their photos.
The major contributor to image quality is photographer skill and knowledge.

With the right lighting gear and set up, the XTi you currently have is more than up to the task.
Producing high quality product images requires not just lights, but reflectors, black flats to subtract light, diffusers, and other types of light modifers.
Image sharpness is about lens quality, a very stable camera mount, and photographer skill and knowledge

Your company could save a lot of time and money by hiring a professional photographer on a consulting basis to assist you in setting up the lighting you need to cover the product, people, and corporate environment they want shot.


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## ronlane (Apr 25, 2014)

Dao said:


> For that beer photo, try use a longer focal length and bounce the flash off the ceiling.  With longer focal length (i.e. 55mm) you will not be too close to the subject which will help light the subject.
> 
> If possible, get a little forwarding light by placing a little white card at the back of the flash head when pointing upward (just to expose a little bit to give some forwarding light).
> 
> ...



With the T3i canon the ISO choices are 200 and 400, just FYI.


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## vintagesnaps (Apr 25, 2014)

Those are slow shutter speeds, I'd find it hard to not get blur at those settings. I usually don't go slower than 1/60 (preferably 1/125 or higher) hand held, if I'm losing light late day and am still trying to get pictures I usually need to get positioned to better support the camera. 

Going to a class at a community college wouldn't necessarily be the only option, you might be able to find info. online or find a workshop - or maybe if your company is considering buying a new camera they'd consider paying for some training. 

As others have said, this it getting into doing commercial product photography, and it would probably help to brush up on your skills that you learned a few years ago and learn techniques specific to product photography before getting a new camera.


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## BlakBird (Apr 25, 2014)

vintagesnaps said:


> Those are slow shutter speeds, I'd find it hard to not get blur at those settings. I usually don't go slower than 1/60 (preferably 1/125 or higher) hand held, if I'm losing light late day and am still trying to get pictures I usually need to get positioned to better support the camera.
> 
> Going to a class at a community college wouldn't necessarily be the only option, you might be able to find info. online or find a workshop - or maybe if your company is considering buying a new camera they'd consider paying for some training.
> 
> As others have said, this it getting into doing commercial product photography, and it would probably help to brush up on your skills that you learned a few years ago and learn techniques specific to product photography before getting a new camera.




*Going to a class at a community college wouldn't necessarily be the only option*
Yea, like I said earlier. I feel like the skill set is there it's just...lost because I haven't used it in so long. One thing that I regret not doing is this..my friend who's now a professional photographer for my alma mater said "just sit down at night and play with your camera, learn the settings, fiddle with it". Yep, def didn't do that. I've had the focusing issue through out the life of the camera, I've always thought it was just the camera's capability and limits. That's not to say I haven't taken some good shots. Most of those shots have been outdoors with a ton of natural light. I've been to Iceland, Germany, Peru, the Amazon rain forest, tons of great photos from those trips but most were outside. Sometimes I'd take a photo that simply stood out from all the rest and I had no way of explaining how I did it or how to duplicate it. 

I would use the analogy to my understanding of cars how they operate to my knowledge of photography. I can drive stick, I'm not that great at it but I can drive a manual. I understand how a turbocharger works and the concepts behind it but I have no clue how to install it on my own car. I understand the basic concept of how f stops work, shutter speeds and what the ISO settings are responsible for. But I haven't quite found that balance on how to use them harmoniously. I feel that another photography course would be overkill on this subject because all the teacher is going to do is go over the basics. I know the basics I just need them fine tuned. That's why I came to a forum assuming there's probably some information online that would help fill in the blanks to what I already know. 

It's like this, and I'm sorry to continue running my mouth on this subject I think it's important for everyone in this thread to be on the same page. I took a total of 3 courses in HTML and web design. They all pretty much teach the same stuff, p, h1, h2, h3, ul, ol, li, img, body, header, form, etc. So by the end of the first two classes, I had the same knowledge as before. I knew the basic tags and had an understanding of how CSS works. But I still had no clue how to MAKE a webpage .....LOOK like a freakin webpage, centered, styled, the whole nine yards. It wasn't until the third teacher (I know this his hypocritical because I'm talking about how another photo class would be overkill) taught us the div tag. Then all blank spots starting filling, clicking and aligning. It was like the clouds opened up. And now I have a job where I primarily design and help build webpages for a living. 

Point is, I'm confident I just need a refresher and some tips that didn't quite click the first time around.


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## Dao (Apr 25, 2014)

You may not need basic photography course, but may need to take course about lighting (Some people learn faster with  school class).  Or at least read more about them online (Some people prefer do their own research) or read a book related to lighting.   

If you learn more about how to shoot with off camera lights, that should improve a lot.  Mastering the lights is another whole new area and it is better if the person know more about basic photography.  As for the just have the external flash mounted on the camera and bounce the light off the ceiling, you should be able to try that with your XTi.   I do not think there are much different at all, if any, between Xti and T3i as far as the result goes.


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## BlakBird (Apr 25, 2014)

Dao said:


> You may not need basic photography course, but may need to take course about lighting (Some people learn faster with  school class).  Or at least read more about them online (Some people prefer do their own research) or read a book related to lighting.
> 
> If you learn more about how to shoot with off camera lights, that should improve a lot.  Mastering the lights is another whole new area and it is better if the person know more about basic photography.  As for the just have the external flash mounted on the camera and bounce the light off the ceiling, you should be able to try that with your XTi.   I do not think there are much different at all, if any, between Xti and T3i as far as the result goes.



I don't know much about the T3i's image sensor but I know the ISO will go to 6400 and the max shutter speed may be a little faster than the XTi.


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## ronlane (Apr 25, 2014)

BlakBird said:


> Dao said:
> 
> 
> > You may not need basic photography course, but may need to take course about lighting (Some people learn faster with  school class).  Or at least read more about them online (Some people prefer do their own research) or read a book related to lighting.
> ...



I have the T3i and while it may go up to 6400, I wouldn't push it past 1600 for most of my images. I have but I typically don't like the results.


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## Dao (Apr 25, 2014)

That's why you may need to read and learn more about lighting.   It is better to have the control of light.   For product shooting, I really do not see why you need to shoot at ISO 1600.  You can, but why?    Shutter speed is not important as long as  it is not too slow nor faster than the x-sync speed.  So 1/160, 1/200 or 1/250 is enough.   After all, the lights flash a lot faster anyway.  And that is why I say you will not see much different between the 2 cameras.


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## BlakBird (Apr 25, 2014)

> I have the T3i and while it may go up to 6400, I wouldn't push it past 1600 for most of my images. I have but I typically don't like the results.



See, I find that really interesting because that's all I've been using in order to get decent light from my indoor shots. Do you keep yours on M, AV, or TV?  I think I've been relying too much on AV and TV not realizing what the camera is actually doing. Now that I'm reading a little more about the settings it's making more sense to me why some of the photos would come out bad on Manual mode.

I remember when I first got the camera, I put it on M..probably wasn't used to the interface yet and didn't realize the shutter speed was on 1" or something lower and pressed the button and it's like it froze haha. I stopped using Manual mode, because I didn't understand what was actually going on.


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## BlakBird (Apr 25, 2014)

Dao said:


> That's why you may need to read and learn more about lighting.   It is better to have the control of light.   For product shooting, I really do not see why you need to shoot at ISO 1600.  You can, but why?    Shutter speed is not important as long as  it is not too slow nor faster than the x-sync speed.  So 1/160, 1/200 or 1/250 is enough.   After all, the lights flash a lot faster anyway.  And that is why I say you will not see much different between the 2 cameras.



Sorry I forgot to make a small correction. We're not doing product shoots. It's multiple people in a corporate environment kind of shoot. But I presume the same techniques would apply.
It's really starting to sound like I need sit down and read through my manual thoroughly, and play with stuff.


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## ronlane (Apr 25, 2014)

BlakBird said:


> > I have the T3i and while it may go up to 6400, I wouldn't push it past 1600 for most of my images. I have but I typically don't like the results.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Most of the time I use either AV or Manual.


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## Dao (Apr 25, 2014)

BlakBird said:


> Dao said:
> 
> 
> > That's why you may need to read and learn more about lighting.   It is better to have the control of light.   For product shooting, I really do not see why you need to shoot at ISO 1600.  You can, but why?    Shutter speed is not important as long as  it is not too slow nor faster than the x-sync speed.  So 1/160, 1/200 or 1/250 is enough.   After all, the lights flash a lot faster anyway.  And that is why I say you will not see much different between the 2 cameras.
> ...



I see.    Well, for that control of light still essential.

From the web, I like these 2 sites

http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/
Strobist: Lighting 101


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## BlakBird (Apr 28, 2014)

UPDATE: I got around to fiddling with my boss's T3i and I'm noticing some dramatic differences. Idk, I still think my camera's age is showing in the photos. The photos I took with the T3i were significantly 'brighter' and clearer (is that a word? whatevs).

I just took some random photos in one of our training rooms.

Here are the specs for the photos.

T3i handle - f/5.6 1/125 s ISO 400 18-200 at 110mm
XTi handle - f/5.6 1/125 s ISO 400 18-200 at 130mm
T3i work station - f/8 1/125 ISO 400 18-200 at 18mm
XTi work station - f/8 1/50 s ISO 400 18-200 at 20mm


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## ronlane (Apr 28, 2014)

Nice side by side comparison. I would agree that the T3i is brighter in spite of the fact that it is using a faster shutter speed on the work station. Interesting.


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## BlakBird (Apr 28, 2014)

ronlane said:


> Nice side by side comparison. I would agree that the T3i is brighter in spite of the fact that it is using a faster shutter speed on the work station. Interesting.



Yea haha, so while I still am not claiming to be a master photography by any means..I'm also relatively confident it's not all my lack of skill that I've temporarily lost/forgotten. I really just think it's age.. 

Any more thoughts?

This experiment today has made me question selling my XTi with the IS lenses to someone learning, keeping the flash and going for my own T3i.


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## ronlane (Apr 28, 2014)

I wouldn't talk you out of it, but if you are going up to the T3i, I would consider the 60D as well. It's more camera and can be had for about the same money. Both of those camera's have been replaced by new models. (70D and the T5i).


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## BlakBird (Apr 28, 2014)

ronlane said:


> I wouldn't talk you out of it, but if you are going up to the T3i, I would consider the 60D as well. It's more camera and can be had for about the same money. Both of those camera's have been replaced by new models. (70D and the T5i).



I'll have to do some research on whether my flash will work with them or not but as far as losing the lenses..I got them used, so I'm thinking with everything I have with it:
18-55 non IS
55-200 non IS
18-55 IS
55-200 IS
Bag
Battery
Cables and manual
Body.......$500  Fair craigslist price?
That 4 lenses! Or should I set the price higher?


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## lambertpix (Apr 28, 2014)

The T3i should be a little bit of a step up vs. the XTi, as are the cameras you listed in your OP.  Normally, I'm not a big fan of "upgrade first and ask questions later", so I applaud you for looking into this before pulling out the credit card.  There's some really good advice in earlier posts regarding lighting and stabilizing your camera.  Regardless of whether you end up upgrading, be sure to follow up with some of those suggestions for best results.  I agree that technique is at least part of the problem here.

As well as improving your skills, you might consider a better lens at some point.  Depending on what focal length(s) you need, this might not be a huge investment -- Canon's 50mm f/1.8 is quite inexpensive, and it can produce good results when used correctly (no IS on that lens, though, so there's no way you'd get away with the shutter speeds in your example photos).

In any event, if you do still wind up looking at an upgraded body, you should be  aware that the 6D won't work with your EF-S lenses, so you'd need to  plan to upgrade those as well should you go that route.  I'd also skip the 7D unless you're doing sports / action photography, where its speed and focus capabilities really help.  The 70D, on the other hand, would be a great all-around upgrade for you -- especially with better lenses.


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## BlakBird (Apr 28, 2014)

lambertpix said:


> The T3i should be a little bit of a step up vs. the XTi, as are the cameras you listed in your OP.  Normally, I'm not a big fan of "upgrade first and ask questions later", so I applaud you for looking into this before pulling out the credit card.  There's some really good advice in earlier posts regarding lighting and stabilizing your camera.  Regardless of whether you end up upgrading, be sure to follow up with some of those suggestions for best results.  I agree that technique is at least part of the problem here.
> 
> As well as improving your skills, you might consider a better lens at some point.  Depending on what focal length(s) you need, this might not be a huge investment -- Canon's 50mm f/1.8 is quite inexpensive, and it can produce good results when used correctly (no IS on that lens, though, so there's no way you'd get away with the shutter speeds in your example photos).
> 
> In any event, if you do still wind up looking at an upgraded body, you should be  aware that the 6D won't work with your EF-S lenses, so you'd need to  plan to upgrade those as well should you go that route.  I'd also skip the 7D unless you're doing sports / action photography, where its speed and focus capabilities really help.  The 70D, on the other hand, would be a great all-around upgrade for you -- especially with better lenses.




yea, lots to consider here. I'd def thought very seriously about the 50mm lens. Gonna have to play my cards just right on this one. Got a gig with a non profit this summer that I do free graphic work for and occasionally take photos for (this is where the sudden "hey I better get new equipment" came in. Sick of poor low light shots.)

Do you all think $5-600 is a fair price to ask someone on cragslist for all my current equipment (not counting the flash, I'm keeping that bad boy..) If I can get a decent amount back, then I can put a minimum amount on my credit card.

OH, also, I will be using a tripod for this upcoming project for my job. Nonethess, I think there's a clear quality difference in the two cameras.


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## lambertpix (Apr 28, 2014)

BlakBird said:


> Do you all think $5-600 is a fair price to ask someone on cragslist for all my current equipment (not counting the flash, I'm keeping that bad boy..) If I can get a decent amount back, then I can put a minimum amount on my credit card.



If I'm reading that list correctly, you've basically got two sets of two lenses -- one IS and one not.  If that's the case, I'm not sure your 4-lens bundle is going to fetch much more than a 2-lens bundle.  You could try listing it, but I'd also consider listing the two non-IS lenses individually, and then sell the IS lenses w/ the XTi, or vice-versa.  You might get a little more for the kit that way.


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## BlakBird (Apr 28, 2014)

lambertpix said:


> BlakBird said:
> 
> 
> > Do you all think $5-600 is a fair price to ask someone on cragslist for all my current equipment (not counting the flash, I'm keeping that bad boy..) If I can get a decent amount back, then I can put a minimum amount on my credit card.
> ...




Oh ok, so bundle the two IS lenses with the XTi and price 'em at $400-450 and try and sell the other two for $50 and $100?


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## lambertpix (Apr 28, 2014)

BlakBird said:


> Oh ok, so bundle the two IS lenses with the XTi and price 'em at $400-450 and try and sell the other two for $50 and $100?



Something like that - it's a little more putzing around, but I just don't think those two near-duplicate lenses are going to help the value of your bundle much.  Just my $0.02, though, so take it with a grain of salt.


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