topic Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

jburch921 — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 18:57:31 GMT

Hello Canon friends.

I recently bought a new Canon T8i following the advice from some friends on this forum. I will be traveling to Maine in a few days and I'm hoping to get the best possible pictures from my new Canon T8i camera as possible.

I went from a Canon Rebel T-3 to this camera. It's definately taking a little getting use too. I see it has so many more creative options to chose from so it's a little over whelming. I'm just looking for some basic beautiful fall landscape pictures.

Does anyone have any basic recommendations for settings to take some crisp fall landscape pictures without it being more that I can handle as a new-be with this camera?

Thank you so much for any recommendations.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

jrhoffman75 — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 22:43:05 GMT

While the T8i may have more built-in special modes it still has the same basic modes as your T3.

I would not recommend exploring the new features on a special trip/event.

Use P or green square Auto or whatever other settings you successfully used on the T3.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

Tronhard — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 23:03:11 GMT

If you are looking for general guidance try this link:

How to Take Landscape Photographs with a Canon EOS Rebel

This link will give you sample images to look at. The point here is to REALLY look at how the image was constructed and obeserve the settings used by the photographers.

Canon EOS Rebel T8i (850D) sample gallery: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Try this video on landscape photography:

The BEST SETTINGS for Landscape Photography - YouTube

If you are really hoping to get the most out of your new camera, you need to invest some time in getting the skill to use the tool fully. So look on-line for tutorials. I recommend going to your local libary website and searching the catalogue for an item called LinkedIn Learning - if available, this will give you free access via the library to a huge range of tutorials on photography by highly skilled photographers and talented educators. They cover everything else from the very basics of exposure to advanced post-production techniques.

Otherwise Youtube tutorials, books from the library - SPEND TIME LOOKING AT THE IMAGES OF GOOD PHOTOGRAPHERS and understanding how their settings created their results.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

ebiggs1 — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 15:21:07 GMT

"I would not recommend exploring the new features on a special trip/event.
Use P or green square Auto or whatever other settings you successfully used on the T3."

John is correct here. The best advice is keep a simple shot,... simple.

Don't over think it. P mode will most likely capture most of what you want. I personally would avoid any of the so-called creative modes. Do shoot Raw. <--- Always ! Do use a lower ISO number like 200 for most daylight shots. Be prepared to change it though. Smaller aperture number perhaps f8. Be prepared to change it too.

It is nice to read stuff and watch tutorials and such but experience is the best teacher. Also, don't over think it. And, remember no photographer gets a prize winner on every shot.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

kvbarkley — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 16:37:37 GMT

Bob Atkins has some stuff:

http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/tutorials/fall_foliage_photography.html

The above includes a Picture Style to emphasize Fall Foliage.

More about picture styles:

https://www.dpreview.com/articles/6647569988/getting-great-colour-from-canon-picture-styles

Styles from Canon:

https://global.canon/en/imaging/picturestyle/file/index.html

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

Tronhard — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 18:48:06 GMT

@ebiggs1 wrote:
"I would not recommend exploring the new features on a special trip/event.
Use P or green square Auto or whatever other settings you successfully used on the T3."

John is correct here. The best advice is keep a simple shot,... simple.

Don't over think it. P mode will most likely capture most of what you want. I personally would avoid any of the so-called creative modes. Do shoot Raw. <--- Always ! Do use a lower ISO number like 200 for most daylight shots. Be prepared to change it though. Smaller aperture number perhaps f8. Be prepared to change it too.

It is nice to read stuff and watch tutorials and such but experience is the best teacher. Also, don't over think it. And, remember no photographer gets a prize winner on every shot.

The quote and comments about THIS trip I support. My advice is for when you have the opportunity to spend time and take a structured approach to learning to get the most from your new investment. Photography is a 'slow burn', so if you want to get out there and take pictures right now, then trust the camera's auto features. You may find that they don't work on all occasions, but they should give you acceptable shots for the majority of your trip.

That said, when you get back, if you want to take more control, then use the many links suggested as a starting point to expand your skill.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

kvbarkley — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 19:12:16 GMT

Or, move to where Trevor is and you have another 6 months to get ready. 8^)

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

Tronhard — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 19:25:01 GMT

@kvbarkley wrote:
Or, move to where Trevor is and you have another 6 months to get ready. 8^)

Absolutely, apply NOW - it will take at least that long to be allowed in. We have about 5,000 Managed Isolation Facility spaces for those who want to enter the country, and 25,000 NZ'ers alone, who want access to come home. So heaven knows how many foreign nationals want in!

Spring down here has been a long time coming, so I am going to enjoy it!

Stay safe and well, wherever you are!

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

ebiggs1 — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 13:42:37 GMT

"Photography is a 'slow burn',..."

Good fact.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

stevet1 — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 21:27:09 GMT

@jburch921 wrote:
Hello Canon friends.

I recently bought a new Canon T8i following the advice from some friends on this forum. I will be traveling to Maine in a few days and I'm hoping to get the best possible pictures from my new Canon T8i camera as possible.

I went from a Canon Rebel T-3 to this camera. It's definately taking a little getting use too. I see it has so many more creative options to chose from so it's a little over whelming. I'm just looking for some basic beautiful fall landscape pictures.

Does anyone have any basic recommendations for settings to take some crisp fall landscape pictures without it being more that I can handle as a new-be with this camera?

Thank you so much for any recommendations.

jburch921,

I got an T8i recently too.

I've been doing a lot of shooting in Aperture Priority mode with my aperture set at 7.1.and Auto ISO..

If you do that, you can know ahead of time that the camera will automatically set a shutter speed at close to 2X your focal length.

If you are shooting a stationary object, that should be more than adequate to avoid any motion blur.

If you are shooting a moving object, you can change over to Shutter Priority mode and try to pick a shutter speed that will either freeze the motion, or deliberately introduce subject blur..

When I started out, I was using Auto White Balance, but thought that my pictures were coming out ;loking kind of washed out.

When I started using either Daylight White Balance, or Cloudy White Balance, they are coming out better, I think.

Here's a picture I took just the other day. I was Aperture Priority mode. My lens was at 186mm and the camera set a shutter speed of 1/400. I was so startled, that I completely forgot to focus. I thought he was going to land on my head

Steve Thomas

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

ebiggs1 — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 13:38:28 GMT

"I started using either Daylight White Balance, or Cloudy White Balance, they are coming out better..."

If you would switch to Raw, you can set WB anywhere, the exact place you want it, in post edit. Choosing Raw is the single best change you can do to make your photos better. Of course it requires you to post edit but you probably u/l the photos to your computer anyway. This makes the conversion process seamless and unnoticed.

In your editor simply look at the picture, you probably are already doing that, than click on the WB you like best.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

jburch921 — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 01:07:45 GMT

Thank you all for the suggestions we went to Vermont and Maine and I took pictures RAW. I'm hoping they turned out as well as I think they did looking at them at on the camera screen.

Now I have another problem. I loaded the pictures on my computer and they are in a CR3 format. Which I am unable to open them to see the pictures. So bummed.

Does anyone know how I can open these into a jpeg file or any file so I can actually look and edit them? Help anyone. I've already spent hours trying to figure this out.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

jburch921 — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 01:25:52 GMT

Looking for help with CR3 format. I'm trying to open the pictures but am unable to do so with this format. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

jrhoffman75 — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 01:52:24 GMT

What software are you using?

Download and use the free Canon DPP software.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

jburch921 — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 02:59:06 GMT

I loaded the pictures using the SD card directly onto my laptop. From there it went to a EOS digital (F) drive. This is where all my pictures ended. I tried using a cut a paste to another file to change them to a jpeg file but that's where I'm stuck at the moment. So frustrating. I didn't having this issue loading with my old Canon T-3

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

jrhoffman75 — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 03:05:13 GMT

Start from scratch. Download the RAW files to your computer into a newly created folder

Then use Canon DPP to open the files.

You can't cut and paste a RAW file and turn it into a JPEG file.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

jburch921 — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 04:10:15 GMT

I downloaded the SD card and the files are I the EOS Digit (F) dCMI 100CANON file. This is where they are automatically going. If I download a Canon DPP will I be able to load the files onto to Canon DPP file? I've been trying to get these files open for hours know. I had no idea shooting these pictures raw instead of jpeg would be such a headache.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

Tronhard — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 04:13:14 GMT

If you are using windows 10 you can download a cr3 file conversion tool for ms. Is you do that you can see the files in a file manager preview window as well as photo viewer.

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

jrhoffman75 — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 11:36:14 GMT

Based on what you wrote I think you are looking at the camera SD card and not downloaded images.

Here is how my camera card shows up:

The DCIM folder is where the camera stores the images.

Inside the DCIM folder there is a folder 100CANON

Inside that folder will be your image files.

My folder is empty now, but if I had images they would be there.

How are you downloading the images?

Re: Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

jrhoffman75 — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 11:31:14 GMT

@Tronhard wrote:
If you are using windows 10 you can download a cr3 file conversion tool for ms. Is you do that you can see the files in a file manager preview window as well as photo viewer.

Hi. I think you may mean this product.

It doesn't convert .CR3 files but it will allow you to see the actual image and not the file icon.