Canon T8I Setting for sharp fall foliage pictures

[jburch921]

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.

[ebiggs1]

"I had no idea shooting these pictures raw instead of jpeg would be such a headache."

It is not a headache. It isn't even hard to do. You just need a free from Canon editing software package that will do the job seamlessly. Go to the web site and d/l DPP4 for your camera. Click me!  You will have to have the serial number from the bottom of your camera.

This is without doubt the best way to get the best pictures possible. It is light years better than jpg. However, if you choose not to, I have no idea why you would, but DPP4 will simply let you do that too. You don't need to get any MS add-ons or buy any other software. Canon has provided this for free.

[ebiggs1]

All the great and fantastic photos that you see and love go through some post editing process. It can be as easy or as difficult as you want it. Basic color balance and levels control along with a white balance adjustment are all you usually need. And, it will make a world of difference.

You ask, why not just use jpg and do the same? The big difference is how the jpg is created. First you know that a Raw file is not viewable as you have discovered. It must be converted to some other format. Raw is just that, the raw data. A simple seires of ones and zeros. 

All cameras shoot Raw! No matter what you tell it to do, it shoots Raw and at full resolution. Each and every time. The big difference is when you tell it you want a jpg. The camera then decides what is good data and what is not good data. It then deletes all that info from the Raw file. Gone forever. It compresses it into a jpg at the size you selected, large, medium or small. Matter of fact whenever you simply save a jpg you lose more data. Now for another difference you never lose data from a Raw file. Edit it, ten times, save it, five times no data lose.

What this all means in a nutshell is you have way more latitide to do edits in a Raw file. And, if you choose not to edit it at all, you can do that too. Simply make a jpg out of it. Starting with a jpg in camera, you cannot go back to a Raw file!

[Tronhard]

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@jrhoffman75 wrote:

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@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.

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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.

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Yes, that is what I meant.   Converting CR3 files is another issue.  I record images in both RAW and JPG format.

[Tronhard]

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@ebiggs1 wrote:

All the great and fantastic photos that you see and love go through some post editing process. It can be as easy or as difficult as you want it. Basic color balance and levels control along with a white balance adjustment are all you usually need. And, it will make a world of difference.

You ask, why not just use jpg and do the same? The big difference is how the jpg is created. First you know that a Raw file is not viewable as you have discovered. It must be converted to some other format. Raw is just that, the raw data. A simple seires of ones and zeros. 

All cameras shoot Raw! No matter what you tell it to do, it shoots Raw and at full resolution. Each and every time. The big difference is when you tell it you want a jpg. The camera then decides what is good data and what is not good data. It then deletes all that info from the Raw file. Gone forever. It compresses it into a jpg at the size you selected, large, medium or small. Matter of fact whenever you simply save a jpg you lose more data. Now for another difference you never lose data from a Raw file. Edit it, ten times, save it, five times no data lose.

What this all means in a nutshell is you have way more latitide to do edits in a Raw file. And, if you choose not to edit it at all, you can do that too. Simply make a jpg out of it. Starting with a jpg in camera, you cannot go back to a Raw file!

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Ernie is very correct here.  From what I see you are shooting RAW but not having loaded the post-production software to cope with that.  First, I suggest recording in BOTH RAW and JPG - storage is cheap, so until you master your post-production processes and technique you can, if necessary, work with the JPGs.  Keep your RAW images though, because as you get more adept at post production, you can revisit your RAW images and rework them

[jburch921]

That's a great picture Steve.  We went to Maine last week.  Unfortunately, I'm still trying to figure our how to convert the CR3 picture files onto jpeg files.  I spent hours last night before giving up. I'm loading Windows 10 on my laptop and will try to get a fresh start last night.  I shot all  my picture in RAW mode, had I of know I couldn't just automatically load this pictures on my laptop as usual, I probably would have stuck to the way I knew.  UGH  Wish me luck.  I'm hoping for some amazing pictures when I finally get them loaded.

Jeanette

[kvbarkley]

Why didn't you just get DPP?

[jrhoffman75]

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@jburch921 wrote:

That's a great picture Steve.  We went to Maine last week.  Unfortunately, I'm still trying to figure our how to convert the CR3 picture files onto jpeg files.  I spent hours last night before giving up. I'm loading Windows 10 on my laptop and will try to get a fresh start last night.  I shot all  my picture in RAW mode, had I of know I couldn't just automatically load this pictures on my laptop as usual, I probably would have stuck to the way I knew.  UGH  Wish me luck.  I'm hoping for some amazing pictures when I finally get them loaded.

Jeanette

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You can upload the .CR3 files to your computer just like any other image files from a camera.

The only difference is that if you don't have the raw file extension discussed above you will see a graphical icon instead of an actual photo image when you open the folder in Windows Explorer.

The other potential issue would be that depending on the age of the software you currently use your new camera might night be supported.

But, as a number of us have recommended, download and use Canon DPP.

[ebiggs1]

"Why didn't you just get DPP?"

"download and use Canon DPP."

Simple! Once you have done this all will be well. Raw files are no more difficult to work with than a jpg. You just have to have your computer as up to date as your camera.  Right now your camera is ahead of your computer. Canon wants you to get the best possible form your camera. That's why they give such a robust software package as DPP4 with each new camera.

[ebiggs1]

Did you check out my sample screen shot of DPP4? Doesn't it look familiarity like File Explorer? Your photos will be displayed on the right side of that screen without any input from you. Just like you did the old way with jpgs.