Is my camera good enough???

I

inovermehead

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10
Name
Steve
Edit My Images
Yes
...or is it me!?

I'd really appreciate some help here.
I'm fairly new to photography. Have a Canon 450d, and am not sure if it's up to the task.

I photograph my own 2D artwork to reproduce as Ltd Edition prints.
The canon allows me to produce excellent (to my untrained eye) A4s

terrific sharpness & colour reproduction.
I used to use a pentax 12mp compact to do the job, and thought it did ok untill I got the Canon. Of course it blows the compact away.

The problem I have is while A4s are outstanding. A3's look less sharp, although far superior to my compact they're not as i had hoped.

Am I doing something wrong? Using the raw setting I get tif file sizes of 15 - 18mb. I'm using the standard kit lens which I've read isn't the best.

I want to progress to A2 size printing shortly, and feel the 450d isn't up to it???

Hopefully someone out there is getting great large format prints from this camera, and can point me in the right direction.

Thanks for reading


Steve
 
Steve,
when comparing a3 to a4 are you looking at the prints at the same distance as each other or at normal veiwing distances. You have to remember that prints will not look as good when viewed to close, a bit like if you pixel peep. If you are looking at them at the same distance try looking at them normal viewing distances and see if they look better
 
I would look to get some better glass, just recently got my first 'L' lens, the difference is astounding, also beter lenses can always be used on your next upgrade camera body.


Dave.
 
i've printed A2 size canvases with shots taken with my 450d & kit lens with no problem at all.
 
by a tamron 17-50 f2.8 that will significantly improve the sharpness of the shots

also learning technique helps as does shooting raw pp'ing images and more acurate exposures bodies aint that important...
 
Davec223 said:
Steve,
when comparing a3 to a4 are you looking at the prints at the same distance as each other or at normal veiwing distances. You have to remember that prints will not look as good when viewed to close, a bit like if you pixel peep. If you are looking at them at the same distance try looking at them normal viewing distances and see if they look better
Click to expand...


Thanks Dave

The Original A2 artwork, shot and reduced to A4 of course tightens everything up. I understand that, but even reducing the original A2 shot, to an A3 print should in theory work similarly but it's just not that good.
The quality may be even lower when printed to A2. Not as sharp as the original artwork.
Nowhere near as sharp as a commercial scanner that would give me a tif file size of 70mb to the Canons 15.

I must be doing something wrong?

I guess i'm expecting too much to compete with a scanner...or am I?
I just don't know enough about the equipment to know what's possible.

Steve
 
dizidav said:
I would look to get some better glass, just recently got my first 'L' lens, the difference is astounding, also beter lenses can always be used on your next upgrade camera body.


Dave.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dave

I'm sure I don't yet know enough to get the best even out of the kit lens.
I have heard of it's limitations, but am not sure if it's a problem given the limited use I have for it...just shooting artwork. Perhaps you could suggest the kind of lens that would suit? (on a budget though) having said that It would be worth the investment to get sharp pic at a3, 2 even A1.

Thanks again

Steve
 
I used a 6MP Canon 300D until recently and regularly enlarged to A2 and sometimes A1 for clients without any problems. Your camera is better... so you should not have problems either if you acquire the original image well and process well. You can of course get more clarity with a better body and lenses... depends what you are shooting!
 
I've seen write ups where, without processing, the images produced by a 450d are as good and fairly consistently better than some of the more expensive cameras out there. Even taking these reviews with a pinch of salt it seems to me that the 450d is more than up to the job. To be honest, I don't think that there is a DSLR currently on the market that isn't.

In terms of my own experience, I have printed up to A2 photos taken with the 450d and kit lens without any issues. :)
 
I think that you hit the nail on the head earlier.

By taking a photograph you are not going to be able to reproduce the quality of a commercial scanner. You should be able to get close, but not as good.
A scanner will have a fixed dots per inch never mind what size item it is scanning in.
Your camera will have a dots per inch, spread over the total area of the focal plane. Also, if you have a large aperture, you will be getting curvature of the focal plane, which might mean that the corners are slightly less sharp than the central image.
At A2, you will be able to print at around ?120? dots per inch (a guess here). Usually for smaller items which you view close up, you would hope to print at 300 dpi or better
The size of the scanned file is 70mb you say, as a TIFF. Assuming the same level of compression, this is 4.5 times larger than the TIFF you say you created from your canon. As TIFF images are basically RGB values repeated for each pixel, that means the scan is storing 4 times the data of your photo.
Trouble is, (I suspect), fine art prints are subject to closer 'close up' scrutiny that most photographs. Although you expect the viewer to view the image at 2' or more, there is
a good chance that at some point they will be 4" away peering at the pixels.


The other thing to consider, in DPP (or whatever you are converting the RAW with), are you sharpening the image slightly? With my 400d I expected to sharpen between 3 and 4 dependant on image.

Also, I assume that you are shooting on a tripod, with image stabalisation turned off (I think that kit lens had stabilisation)
The 450d is a good camera, you can print out a2 prints from it. But these prints should be viewed at a distance.
 
coldpenguin said:
I think that you hit the nail on the head earlier.

By taking a photograph you are not going to be able to reproduce the quality of a commercial scanner. You should be able to get close, but not as good.
A scanner will have a fixed dots per inch never mind what size item it is scanning in.
Click to expand...

That seems to be where we're at.
A commercial scan also 'seems' to reproduce the texture of the pastel in the original artwork. It really picks up on the finest lines which seem to soften a little too much in the photographic process.

Maybe a little more tweeking in photoshop might help.
Other comments suggest the camera itself is fine with a little more know how.

I very much appreciate your input

Steve
 
I just had an AO print done, to 'test' my 450d and 18-55 kit lens

I was quite happy with it

:thumbs:
 
What aperture are you shooting at? For a static subject, I would suggest stopping down to f/8.

Also are you using a tripod or are you shooting handheld? You should ideally be using a tripod and shooting at ISO 100.

Next step is postprocessing. Do you sharpen your pictures before you print them?

Also when you prepare an A3 print, how do you get the image to the desired size and what DPI are you printing at? If your DPI is too low the resulting print may not look so good. You can alleviate this by using Photoshop's Bibubic smoother to increase the image size.

The 450D and a kit lens should be able to produce a good A3 print. You need to make sure you have considered all of the above before you proceed with buying more expensive lenses or even cameras.
 
What about lighting for the the print you are taking the photograph of?
 
Yeah it's definitely me!

I've been able to wing it on A4's but with the larger prints my overall lack of knowledge is the real issue.

Further sharpening with photoshop has certainly helped.
I will try various camera settings as advised. I also need to become more familiar with PS ...where can I find the Bicubic thingy?

Considering I make my living selling fine art prints it's embarrassing to know how much i still need to get my head around.

Steve
 
maarten.dhaese said:
What aperture are you shooting at? For a static subject, I would suggest stopping down to f/8.

Also are you using a tripod or are you shooting handheld? You should ideally be using a tripod and shooting at ISO 100.

Next step is postprocessing. Do you sharpen your pictures before you print them?
Click to expand...



ISO 100 F3.5....I'll try 8

Will also try the dpi...think i can swap from 150 to 300.
Bicubic? Where?

Thanks

Steve
 
Get Canon EF 50mm f/1.8. It is only £85 ish new (alternatively get a manual zeiss / leica / takumar / olympus 50mm and adapt it). Use it at f/8 ISO 100 on tripod to get the sharpest possible results. This will ensure the highest possible degree of sharpness.

You may also want to use proper lighting. There is a section about reproductions in "Light - Science and Magic" book - go and get one! Basically you need 2 lights roughly at ~45 degrees, avoiding any direct reflections into the lens (on camera flash is an absolute no-no).
 
daugirdas said:
Get Canon EF 50mm f/1.8. It is only £85 ish new (alternatively get a manual zeiss / leica / takumar / olympus 50mm and adapt it). Use it at f/8 ISO 100 on tripod to get the sharpest possible results. This will ensure the highest possible degree of sharpness.
Click to expand...

It'll be good to get a comparison between the two lenses so have ordered the EF 50mm f/1.8.
 
The bicubic I think he is refering too, is within Photoshop, Image -> Image size.
It is the method of re-sampling used to increase the number of pixels
 
I printed A2 with my old 6MP Nikon D40 and it came out very well!
 
If you are serious about resizing images there is a plug in for Photoshop called Genuine Fractals, it isn't cheap, but it loads better than the Bicubic option.
 
Use aperture of around f/8. ISO 100. Tripod. Focal length of 50mm+ to avoid distortion.

And make sure you've got the lighting right! This bit isn't too cheap, but if you're making your living from it then it's worth investing.
Probably no less than two light sources, and nothing too harsh.

Use a RAW converter like "RAW Therapee" (free) to get the white balance, sharpness, etc. spot on.

Other than that - your camera is definitely good enough, but the kit lens may not be.
 
Craikeybaby said:
If you are serious about resizing images there is a plug in for Photoshop called Genuine Fractals, it isn't cheap, but it loads better than the Bicubic option.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the info ...The difference is absolutely amazing.
No more worries about producing large format.

Thanks to everyone's advice I now know that the 450d is more than capable even with the standard lens. (I will experiment with new lenses).

Found the Bicubic variables in photoshop..(havent messed with this yet)
I think the biggest surprise so far is the Genuine Fractals! I'm knocked out by the quality I should now be able to achieve.

Other stuff on it's way is Spyder3Elite monitor calibration. To date this has been a bit of a hit or miss affair in trying to match what's visible on the monitor to the printed output. I'm not expecting miracles because of other variables such as printer...inks, and paper. However I am expecting (hoping for) a noticable improvement.

I'm shortly upgrading my current A3 epson printer to Canon ipf5100 A2.
The next job will be getting the best out of it, and how best to use the photoshop colour management system?

I'm a little confused on the RGB - CYMK and Canon Raw embedded profile ???
 
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