Total Beginner needs help please!

[Deckydodo]

HI, I am a mom of three kids who are models. I need to take pics of them regularly to update their portfolio and send to their agent. I usually take them outside to play and snap pics of full body and some face shots. They move around a lot.

I have a Canon Rebel T5 kit. What setting should I have it on so I can have the flexibiity of moving around with them and taking pics. Auto?  If not auto setting, can someone talk me through each setting in another program please?  My photos look grainy, washed out, blurry, etc. I can't get it right. Thanks so much!!

[ebiggs1]

"You will also find it capitalized in most photography books and real magazines."

Well there you go! That makes it so.  I guess spending more time reading would have educated me.  Thanks so much for the tip.

[RobertTheFat]

---

@ebiggs1 wrote:

"I have a mixed opinion on this.  There are some who say you should just go shoot.  I prefer to say that while learning, it's good to shoot with a goal.  Learn a concept from a book... then go out and try to put it to use to make sure your really understand how it works and have success using it."

This is surprising coming from you.  Do you prefer the book or the eye piece of a telescope?  The book may tell you where to point it but it don't how a candle to actually looking.  Does it?  Why do you erroneously conclude I said never touch a book or never read the ole inner web.  I never said that.

Oh, BTW, raw is not an acronym, nor should it be capitalized. It just refers to the native file format generated by the analog to digital converter in the camera. You guys must have missed that because of blurry eyes doing so much reading. 

---

Are you serious, Ernie? Tim obviously respects the written word if anybody does. Most of his posts could be incorporated verbatim into a photography textbook. Reading manuals or other documentation is in no way inconsistent with getting out and experimenting in order to test your knowledge or put it to work.

BTW, I Googled "RAW". There's quite a bit of sentiment in favor of spelling it with caps. More than for not doing it, I'd say.

[ebiggs1]

B from B,

"Are you serious, Ernie?"

As serious as always.  It seems several of you can benefit from a little Reading Comprehension 101.  So perhaps I am mistaken about the need for extensive reading. Again, and read this slowly, I never said don't read anything just interject some hands on.

"I Googled "RAW". There's quite a bit of sentiment in favor of spelling it with caps."

Sentiment proves nothing.  It is not an acronym for anything. Robert it is still is a free country so if it gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling to use all caps, you have my permission.  I have even done it myself and the Sun still came up the next day.  I have since corrected that and no longer use caps.

I appreciate all the reading and google-ing all of you are doing on my behalf.  I mean that !  

[diverhank]

---

@ebiggs1 wrote:

"I Googled "RAW". There's quite a bit of sentiment in favor of spelling it with caps."

Sentiment proves nothing.  It is not an acronym for anything. Robert it is still is a free country so if it gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling to use all caps, you have my permission.  I have even done it myself and the Sun still came up the next day.  I have since corrected that and no longer use caps.

---

You usually use caps for a type.  As such RAW should be capitalized, the same goes with JPEG but who cares. Like John SD said, Canon manual capitalizes both RAW and JPEG and I think it's right.  But Ernie, you have my permission to use lower caps raw...

[Danny]

Hi, everyone!

We're seeing a lively debate here over the proper capitalization of the file format's name and we'd like to weigh in.  Canon prefers to spell out the file format in all caps as "RAW" as it visually differentiates it from the lowercase "raw."  The former refers to the Canon RAW file format, along the same lines as JPG and TIF, whereas the latter can mean a more literal definition of the word, which in this context can refer to an unedited photo in any file format.

We fully acknowledge that we have no control over how people choose to capitalize their text, but to ensure clarity and avoid ambiguity, we encourage users to capitalize the name correctly so that everyone knows exactly what's being talked about.

Hope this helps!

[ebiggs1]

JPEG and TIFF are capitalised because they are acronyms.

JPEG = Joint Photographic Experts Group 
TIFF = Tagged Image File Format

raw = read and weep ? Not an acronym.

Want more?  In the best selling book The Basic Book of Digital Photography by Tom Grimm, Michele Grimm, they state;

"You will never see Raw file format extension written as .raw. Note some publications capitalize the format name (i.e. RAW) even though it is not a specific file format like JPEG or TIFF; we capitalize only the first letter of Raw in order to emphasize that distinction."

So now you have to decide a real dilemma.  Will you use RAW, Raw or raw?

But to Danny's input, it seems to me Canon even has a problem with spelling Cannon!  Perhaps they also have a problem with the correct useage of raw.  

[John_SD]

You'll want to get a book or two on composition. Increasingly, for me, that is where it's at. And good composition can make a big difference. 

I once posted a link for a book that is considered an excellent foundation in photographic composition, and one of the mods quickly deleted it. It wasn't a Canon book, you see. But if you look on Amazon, you'll be able to find some books on composition. People are so obsessed with lenses, they don't realize that without proper composition the photo is still inferior. 

For example, your photos could have been vastly improved through the simple expedient of keeping subject off-center and shooting against a "decluttered" background. Also, in the second photo, it would have been good to have taken the shot with the child outside against some greenery, and not against that white post. 

Hope you don't take offense at my suggestions, but I think that good shots, such as yours, can be made much better once you get a handle on subject placement, background, angle, etc.