Adjustable lenses or zoom lenses are extremely useful things to use, but like everything in life, “There is no such thing as a free lunch”. Zooms are invariably a compromise of versatility vs. quality. The convenience of being able to change the focal length is balanced by a lack of image quality. Sure you can buy top of the line zoom lenses that give fantastic images – for fantastic $$.

An 18-55mm zoom will be very useful for landscape, architecture and a good all round general purpose lens. I believe due to the size of the CMOS sensor the camera has a lens multiplier of 1.6. This makes the zoom effectively a 28-88mm lenses.

A good guide for zoom is using the lens at the 18mm and the 55mm ends will produce the worst images. The best place to use a zoom lens is about the middle of the lenses focal range, which will be about 35mm for your lens. I am not saying don’t zoom in or out, just be aware that the best image quality is in the middle. If possible use the good old fashion manual zoom function and either walk closer or further away to the subject.

Like most lenses they also have an optimum point for their Aperture. Once again it is usually about the middle. For most lenses its around the f8 – f11 point. If you are not worried about the depth of field and the lighting is good try to stay close to f8 or f11.

You will hear some people tell you they can fix any image in Photoshop so don’t worry about things. Sure Photoshop can fix a lot of mistakes, but why not get your image as good as you can when you take it. Having Photoshop CS ‘whatever’ is no substitute for developing good photography skills and using them.

Suggestion – The first thing you should consider is put a filter on your lens. Either a “Daylight” or “UV” filter. These will have little effect on the images you shoot, BUT they will help protect the lens from dust and finger prints. They may also help save you lens from minor knocks. Better to replace a $30-$50 filter that became scratched than a $200-$500 lens. Try to avoid removing this filter if you can.

My last bit of advice is joining a camera/photography club if you have not already done so. You can learn a lot about photography here and they will encourage you to push your self in different directions and styles of photography.

Good luck and good shooting,
Paul

Additionally, it could be otherwise and there’s some fault in the equipment itself, so do compare your lens/camera with others of the same make before concluding anything.

OK, so your images are not as sharp as you hope or expect. Matt Matchura raised an excellent point about the apature of the lens. Lenses tend to have a ‘Sweet Spot” where the lens is at its optimum, this is usually around f8 – f11. This is where most lenses will produce their best result.
HOWEVER digital cameras, including SLRs will not create a sharp image. The cameras will try to apply some average sharpening of the image, but not always the best. If you want to get better results use Photoshop, (or whatever you’re using) and apply “Unsharp”. Ironically this will sharpen the image. Do not just whack it up to full or you will over sharpen the image and distort the result.
There are other basic things you can do to clean up the image with out chopping it up. I wont go in to these here. Night classes can help you here and so can various articles on this site and many others.

Big suggestion – some people take a view of, ‘Who cares, I’ll fix it later in photoshop”. Not a great attitude to develop. There is only so much you can fix with a poor photo.
Try and get the best image you can when you take it. This will improve you skills with photography and increase your chance of getting great images.
An extra 5 min taking a shot can save hours of agony behind the keyboard and an uncertain result.

Good luck and good shooting,
Paul P

First, light through the lens, lens to sensor, in camera computer processing, post processing on PC/Mac or whatever. Not trying to make small any previous experience you have covering something so basic, so bear with me. It pans out in the end.

You need to find the stop that your lens works best with. I am not familiar with the 17-85, but I would suspect that between 6.4 and 11 you will find that the lens produces sharper images than when wide open or stopped down all the way. My “kit” lens was the 28-135 and at f/8 it produced wonderfully sharp images, but open it was kind of soft. Experimenting is the only way to find it, but that is the joy of the format!

Lens to sensor is moot if you are shooting off hand. From a tripod, you can lock the mirror up and take out the slight vibration that snapping the shot causes to the camera. I never had that shake cause any problems for me until I started shooting lunar images. It is another thing to consider though, depending on your subject.

In camera processing is a key that I did not consider for a long time. I found that the camera’s processor does a wonderful job sharpening images as they are written to the card. It is quick, taking less than a few milliseconds. Bump it up to 4 or 5 and I think you will start to see the camera come into its own. Resist the urge to take it too far (6 or 7) as it will start to “over sharpen” and you will get “hard” images. Again, experiment as it is cheap and part of the allure of these great cameras.

Post processing is a world unto itself, but the Canon software does a pretty good job I find. Play around with it and I think you will start to see images that will really like. It is all about finding the right settings and then developing a system where all of it is taken into account before each shutter click. The main thing, enjoy! Sorry so long guys and gals -

With digital cameras and the likes of Photoshop, etc. the only other filter you should seriously condiser is a polarising filter. This filter reduces glare and make colours more saturated, very much the same as a pair of polarising sunglasses do for your eyes. It can also cut out a lot of reflection off glass and water. The polarising filters affect is one thing Photoshop can’t recreate – OK there is no doubt some people who will boast that they can do it. Just use the filter, its so much easier.

I have a Nikon D3000, I just bought the camera, I was wondering if I should get filters for it. And any good texts to read about the techniques etc.
Thanks

For zoom requirements, 15x is really too much to ask for. They are just to lure the users of consumer segment cameras. You certainly can go for a 15x zoom and I mention it here so we all know that it is possible. That would be the B003 15x zoom lens by Tamron for Nikon and Canon. However you may want to reconsider why you need that level of zoom at all. The price of this lens is on the higher side of $600 for new.

For that budget you can go for a basic DSLR (less features but still professional image quality). You’ll have to stick to the kit-lens. But wait a few months and you should be able to save more and buy a non-kit lens that suits your needs.

Canon vs Nikon has been an everlasting war and none of them is a clear winner. You need to see for yourself what you like. I don’t have much experience with Canons but I absolutely love my Nikons.

You can certainly upgrade to a compact digital camera with megazoom. But in the end they are still considered toys and in the long run (and may be only a few months down the line) you’ll see the need for a DSLR again. BTW – mega(zoom) is nothing more than a fancy feature. Get a DSLR and then save and get a zoom lens if you are into wild-life photography or similar.

I participated in a photography workshop recently, and it made me wish I would have waited a little longer to upgrade my XTi to a 50D instead of the T1i. I’m curious about shooting in full frame. I got the T1i because of its video capabilities. I have a 1 year old, and I was missing the ease of catching little videos of her with my camera rather than the camcorder since my camera is ALWAYS out.

I am LOVING this website. The articles are wonderful, and are providing so much useful information for the level of photographer I am.

Congratulations on your new purchase. Do drop us a few lines once you have had some time to spend with it. And do not forget to share the photographs in our Flickr group.