I would like to thank you all in advance in helping with this long list of questions. I really don't know a better way of asking for your help. Super appreciated.
So I decided after about a year or so to take the plunge into photography to document work I do on machines. I got myself a canon 7d w/ 28-135 lens and a speedlite 430x2. I am really new to this stuff so there are questions I will have.
First, one is these two shots I took. Why is the dark vertical area on two of my three cats of my cats seem I think noisy is the word or grainy or mattish. Not really sure of the correct wording. Saw the same thing when using a cheap $ 110 Sanyo point and shoot on my suv engine or the interior.
http://www.sunlitcomet.com/images/animals/IMGL8422.JPG
http://www.sunlitcomet.com/images/animals/IMGL8440.JPG
Second, I always have the camera do raw and jpeg. Why do some file names start with IMGL, IMG_L, _mgl and so forth?
Third, on this photo I had what appears to be chromatic aberration all over. Corrected it in PS5 but can the camera do that itself?
http://www.sunlitcomet.com/images/aviation/IMG_7768.JPG
Forth, I really want the photos to look good so I suspect it would be a good idea to learn about PS5. SHould I just work with the raw files to make final jpeg to do printing and stuff?
Fifth, I would like something better then Photobucket to view the Hi-res details in photos is there a sit that is inexpensive that can do a better job or am I better off changing by web site hosting to unlimited storage setup and just build a site page to accommodate it? I don't mind spending a $100 a year for such a thing.
Six, I really want a battery grip or wft for the camera for my big hands and features. Is it really worth getting the wft and setup a storage are on my network so I an just beam pics to it when at home or I have a device with me and for some future idea when I have money to burn or just get the battery grip. Wft is pricey but concerned about always having to take it off to the the camera body battery changed. Like wear and tear on the contacts.
Seven, I want to do some long range shooting. Some of sports, animals and aviation. If I had say about $2000 to spend what would be my first and second choice for a lens. Would like to stay EF-only as I would like a 5dm3 full framer one day. After word I will likely get some ef-s lenses.
Very many thanks again and hope to talk to you all a lot.
Some answers to your questions, not necessarily in the order asked above....
If you can't take some classes, definitely go watch those videos specific to your camera... also watch the three videos starting with this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAx86nblZ2g, about Canon AF systems. Theyare general in nature, there are some more things your 7D can do that aren't even mentioned, but these videos will give you the basics you need to know.
But I agree with ebiggs, don't depend upon the videos alone... they just scratch the surface. In addition to the manual that came with your camera (download a free PDF, if you didn't get it with the camera), buy one of the guide books specific for the 7D. It's a fairly pro-oriented camera with a lot of features and not really designed to be easy to use (I would never have recommended a 7D for an inexperienced user)... But it can be learned if you take the time to read the books and practice with the camera. I have 30+ years experience and still always buy the guide book for any new camera model I get... The guide book helps me get up to speed using the camera well, keeping my learning curve, and the mistakes that go along with it, to a minimum. I can recommend the books written by Charlotte Lowrie, Michael Guncheon and David Busch. I'm sure there are some other good guide books... those three are just the authors I've read personally and found helpful.
I also highly recommend you get and thoroughly read "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson. That might be the best $18 you ever spend on your photography. It is a more general book, should be required reading before people even own a DSLR as sophisitcated as the 7D, or maybe required before they're allowed to post questions on forums!
Creative Auto on your camera is a good learning tool. Once you understand what it's telling you, you will be able to move beyond it and start to take more personal control over the camera. There are times and places to use the auto exposure modes Av, Tv and P.... where they can be the best way or even essential to "getting the shot'. Manual or M mode is the photographer exercising more full control over the camera... They know what they need and set it up themselves... and lock it down in M so that some of the inherent variables of any auto exposure method are no longer a concern. Read Peterson's book... Then you'll understand.
I don't use Photobucket and don't know much about it. For general online posting, I use Flickr. It's fine and only costs about $25 a year for unlimited storage (a small amount of photos can be posted for free). For commercial work I use Printroom.com, but unless you are selling your images you likely don't need that. It's considerably more expensive. I know folks who use and appear to be happy with other online sites such as Smugmug and Pbase. Each site has their own features, which you may or may not find useful.
You can run Lightroom on Vista. I did so for quite a while (though I upgraded to Win 7 as soon as possible... it's so much better than Vista! You shouldn't need to build a new computer just to upgrade, either... Vista and Win 7 have about the same system requirements.)
Lightroom is an organizing, cataloging, batch processing tool, in addition to being able to do light/basic image editing (enough for proofing... though in my opinion not enough for final finishing of images prior to printing or other purposes... for that you need Elements or Photoshop). It's designed for high volume work and batch editing/processing. It also can produce slideshows and be set up for tethered shooting, to support a personal website, or used to produce photo albums and books of various sorts.
Photoshop is the big daddy of image editing, optimization and manipulation softwares, allows for editing far beyond what's possible with Lightroom. It's a huge program and there's much to be learned. Current version (CS6) is supposed to be the last you can buy outright. Adobe is trying to go cloud based with "CC" now, with monthly leases for usage. Cheaper in the short run, but I still prefer to buy and install my softwares with a perpetual license! So CS6 might be the last (and it's about the 8th or 9th) version of PS I use. We'll see... with all the introductory deals they have been offering for CC, I suspect Adobe is finding some resistance and might have to continue offering the traditional software licensing model for a while longer.
What Photoshop alone is not good at is cataloging, keywording, organizing images. It's also not the s'ware to use for slide shows, batch processing and other things.
Often I recommend people starting out consider Adobe Elements. It's got many of the most used features from both Lightroom and Photoshop, and is a really good start along the Adobe path, learning to organize, edit and optimize your own images for various purposes. It's relatively inexpensive, too.
Since you are using Windows, you might find something helpful. If you are using a 32 bit operating system, there is a codec available from Canon that allows you to preview thumbnails from RAW files in Explorer. If you are running a 64 bit OS, it won't work. For that you'll need to look for a third party application. I use one called FastPictureViewer. It cost all of $15 per computer and works great with Canon RAW files, allows them to be displayed in Windows Picture Viewer, as well as supporting RAW files from most major camera manufacturers (I often work with other photogs and need to view images from Nikon, Oly, Pentax, etc. too).
There's nothing at all wrong with the lens you've got... the 28-135 is capable of excellent images, has fast accurate USM focus, is very close focusing, has helpful IS and is a quite useful range of focal lengths. It's just not as well built as an L, but it costs half as much or less, too. You will find that the 28-135 is sort of the Rodney Dangerfield of lenses, it "don't get no respect". Actually it's quite good and capable... just has been sold extensively in kit with many Canon, so there are lots of the lenses around and they can be bought used pretty cheap. You actually would not see any noticeable image quality or general performance improvements spending twice as much for a 24-105L... little better IQ from a 24-70/2.8 "Mark I" that'll cost 3X as much... even surprisingly little diff with a 24-70/2.8 "Mark II" that costs 5X as much. Yes, all those are better built, better sealed, and really capable lenses. But the 28-135 can do a fine job, too. I know more than a few pros who shoot with them. I have two myself (as well as a 24-70/2.8 Mk I). Also check out www.joefarace.com. You might recognize him from his Shutterbug magazine contributions, but he also has a thriving portrait/fashion business, shoots travel and automotive too, and the "lowly" 28-135 is one of his most used lenses. Don't let anyone tell you it's not a very capable lens.
If you want a longer telephoto, there are quite a few possibilities. Considering what you already have, a Canon EF 100-400L IS might be a good choice for you. It's unusual among modern zooms, in that it's a "push/pull" design. Folks tend to either love or hate that sort of zoom... it's fast, though, making it popular among BIF (birds in flight) and airshow photographers. If you prefer a more standard two-ring zoom, I'd recommend looking at Sigma 120-400 OS. Personally I prefer a prime telephoto and use Canon EF 300/4 IS a lot, handheld, with and without a 1.4X teleconverter. But zooms have their advantages, too. Most telephoto lenses are compatible with both your 7D crop sensor camera and any future full frame model. Only a few telephotos are "crop only" (EF-S in Canon lenses).
SInce you have that 28-135, I would not suggest a 70-200 because there is just too much duplication. Canon's 70-200s are all excellent, though (all four versions). They are true workhorse lenses, you'll find one or the other of them in most Canon-shooting-pros' camera bags.
You also might want to consider a wide lens. The 28-135 isn't at all wide on a crop camera. I'd recommend a Canon EF-S 10-22mm or a Tokina 12-24mm. In order to get a true wide angle on your 7D, you have no choice but to go to a "crop only" lens that won't be compatible with a future full frame camera purchase. But, hey, it makes little sense to not get what you need now for the camera you have now, to "hobble" yourself because some day you might have a full frame camera instead. If and when you ever do "go full frame", you can simply sell off and replace any "crop only" lenses you might have at that time. (There is a full frame capable ultrawide... Sigma 12-24mm. But it's a lot more expensive and gives up quite a bit of image quality... Making it sort of a waste to just use it on a crop sensor camera.)
Three lenses (such as 10-22, 28-135 and 100-400) can cover most of your needs pretty well. Sooner or later you still might want some specialty lenses, such as a larger aperture prime for portraits (50/1.4, 85/1.8) or a macro lens (60/2.8, 100/2.8) or something else. But you really should be able to do much of what you need with a set of zooms like that.
Regarding a future full frame camera: Watch out! There are many of Full Frame Fanboyz on the Internet... Every forum is full of them. I will tell you that 8 or 9 out of 10 don't really need a FF camera, they just think they do. Today's crop cameras like the 7D are extremely capable.... You ain't actually gonna see much advantage with a FF camera unless you print really, really big or need to shoot in low, ambient light. There are some disadvantages to FF, too... such as a wildlife or sports photog will find the lenses for it will need to be much longer focal length, much larger & heavier, and far more expensive... in order to do the same things they could do with a crop camera and much more portable and affordable lenses.
You really need to get an auxiliary flash. Both of your cat shots are ruined by using the on-board flash. It's weak (has limited reach), drains the camera's batteries rapidly, and is in about the worst possible place for ugly shadows and redeye/eyeshine issues. Get a 430EX II if you only want a single flash that's reasonably compact. If you want to work with multiple flashes, look into 580EX II (recently discontinued) or 600EX. Put the flash on a bracket, attached to the camera's hot shoe with an Off Camera Shoe Cord... that will move the flash away from the lens axis, helping to minimize redeye/eyeshine and ugly shadow effects.
Regarding chromatic aberration... do you have a "protection" filter on your lens? CA is possible with most lenses, more or less. In extreme contrast situations, it's hard to avoid entirely. But it also can be increased by some questionable practices, such as insisting on trying to "protect" (from what?) your lens with a thin, fragile piece of additional glass in front of it, through which every image you make will be taken. Try removing the filter, you might find CA reduced. Also experiment with your lens at different apertures (and focal lengths).... Most lenses show more or less CA at different apertures, zooms also might vary a bit depending upon focal length.
I see nothing wrong with shooting RAW + JPEG, so long as you have plenty of memory cards and disk drive storage space. You can fill both those up pretty fast, shooting RAW + JPEG. But, at the very least it's another good learning tool. To shoot JPEGs well, you need to set up the camera right. The RAWs and extra latitude they have in post processing can save you from errors made at the time of exposure. Later you can use the JPEGs as a guide when working with the RAWs in post processing.... if you can improve upon the JPEG, you have learned how to better set up the camera or how to work beyond what's possible in the camera alone, or a bit of both, either of which is a good thing.
I would recommend a BG-E7 battery grip for your camera, instead of a WFT module. The grip is nice for it's vertical controls, that make portrait orientation shots more convenient. Of course it also doubles the battery capacity (though it can be used with a single battery if you don't want the additional weight).
WFT (Wireless File Transfer) modules are primarily for high volume, event photographers who need immediate image access during an event for sales purposes... or news/sports/wire service photographers who are backed up by photo editors working with their images while the photog keeps shooting an event, under tight deadlines and with all the competitive urgency of news photography.
The WFT module for 7D is fairly pricey and specific to that camera alone. The WFT-E5 (E5A in N. America) might be orphaned with the next camera model offered (the currently mythical 7D "Mark II"). Canon appears to be heading toward WFT modules that will serve multiple models now and in the future. The WFT-E7/E7A is offered for use on 5D Mark III and likely will be compatible with other models in the future. Or they might use the EFT-E6/E6A module that's compatible with 1DX, 1DC, C500 and C300.
Either way, the trend is away from dedicated modules that don't have much future-proofing. Those dedicated modules do provide vertical controls, but don't increase the camera's battery capacity at all (the battery in the WFT-E7/E7A serves only that module's power needs).
If you simply want easy image transfer on a small scale, I might suggest a WiFi memory card instead.... Or because I've heard of various issues with those cards, just buy more standard memory cards, swap them out when full and use a card reader to download instead. I have had WFT modules in the past, but now I use fourteen 8GB and half a dozen 16GB cards in my cameras (I don't believe in putting all my eggs in one basket, should a card get damaged, corrupted or lost).
The histogram can be displayed in two different ways.... one shows the overall exposure on a single graph... the other shows three graphs, one for each color channel. I recommend just using the single graph for now... but be sure to use it and learn what it's telling you.
Essentially, the LH side of the histogram is dark tonalities and the RH side is highlights. This graph displayed tells you about how the particular image was exposed. Ideally in most situations you want to histogram to not be too crowded against either end of the scale, with a rather large "peak" in the center. If crowded too far left, the image is being underexposed and shadow detail will be lost (and at high ISOs image noise will dramatically increase if it's corrected later in post processing). If crowded too far right, the image is overexposed and the highlights are being blown out.
Now, part of using the histogram is just learning how it should look. There will be times when it should crowd the left (such as a silhouette) or the right (high key lighting). Just get in the habit of occasionally checking at the histogram while you are shooting or after really critical images. It's a great tool to have with you while shooting, once you are comfortable using it.... far better than the "image review" on the camera's LCD monitor screeen, which is heavily influenced by ambient lighting conditions and not calibrated particularly well. In tricky light, check the histogram right away, while you still have opportunity to reshoot, if needed.
Have fun learning to use your new gear!
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Alan Myers
San Jose, Calif., USA
"Walk softly and carry a big lens."
GEAR: 5DII, 7D(x2), 50D(x3), some other cameras, various lenses & accessories
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