City - Tehachapi State - CALIFORNIA Country - United States
About
I have been having a lot of trouble with my Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens. I have made it a mission to figure the sucker out and MAKE IT WORK!
Natural window light. shutter speed was 1/20 and aperature was f/5 but I do not have the option to choose that in the pull down menu. Just a touch of editing for drama.
P.S. thank you so much to Guilio Rotelli and Paul Lara for your helpful comments and advice. You guys are such a great help and are always so encouraging!! (((BIG HUG)))
Thank you very much, I appreciate you taking the time out to explain these things to me.
As for the pull down menu here on usefilm, it does not give the option to put in the exact settings used, it skips certain shutter speeds and f/stop numbers.... not sure why! LOL
I think you did very well with the 18-55mm @ f/5.0, which is a shallow DOF to do a portrait. IMHO... I bought the same lens for my Son with his Rebel XT.
Remember when using low light the filter size of a lens makes a lot of difference, as well. The 18-55mm has a filter size of 58mm, while the 17-85mm has a filter size of 67mm, which allows more light through the lens. This will allow for a deeper DOF and a faster shutter speed.
I use the 20D, which is the little brother of the 30D, but I use the 17-85mm, f/4-5.6, IS, USM to shoot portraits. I usually use an f/stop of f/5.6, or higher though. f/5.6, f/7.1 and f/8.0 work the best for what your trying to achieve I think.
Also I believe that the Canon EMOS sensors a very forgiving regarding grain, or noise as we call it today in the digital world. You can always bump your ISO to 200 maybe even 400 and get a very clear shot indeed. Although I would recommend ISO 100 if at all possible.
I use auto focus on almost all of my shots, but the camera is always in total manual mode. That gives me total control of both my f/stop and shutter speed.
I'm not real sure what your question was regarding the pull down menu, but I hope this will help you in your mission to master the 18-55mm... If I can assist further regarding this matter, please feel free to give me a shout. About using PS you will have to ask someone else, because I can’t use it very well and don’t use it for much more than cropping, sharpening, despeckle, and going from color to B&W, or sepia.
Girl, you did it with 18-55mm?!? Then you didi it right. You see, with natural or strong light it works quite well: your'son eye is PERFECT and so beauty to look. The biggest problem is the richness of details: if you were accustomed to the great clarity of Carl Zeiss Lenses, this Canon 18-55 can't satisfy you at the best. But the camera is great, even on my "poor" EOS 350D, when i use two sigma lenses (the 10-20 and the 70-300 apo macro) my eyes could not believe the difference: all 8mpxl are used at the best. If you want a full detail's shot to post on the web you can do this: working on PS when you have did all your adjustment, you must resize your shot, then, before save it, use the sixth filter "Contrast", under the voice "Filter". You will see the difference: i post you the result (think that working directly on the original will give you better result), but look at the focused eye and the lips, there are more details. If the effect is too hard and it gives you the sense of pixels and not of details you just have to dissolv it with "dissolve" under the voice "modify". hope this gonna help you, but be patient, i think this one is a real fantastic portrait!!
0 
![Lady Marmalade [in color]](http://thumbs.imageopolis.com/images/4/4/1/7/4417/1130787-Micro.jpg "Lady Marmalade [in color]")
{K:24957} 10/3/2006
