2months ago, I bought Canon EOS300 with 28-105USM ( I sure read advices ab't which lens to buy etc.) lens! Now, I am not so happy ab't the results. Am facing three problems :- 1. If the pictures are taken in full bright sunlight, the results are quite good, picture quality, contrast everything is great. But, the moment , the sun is gone, everything falls apart. My point & shoot camera takes better picture in those conditions ( I tried it this time to see the difference). Do I necessarily need to buy flash seperately? 2. I hv set the red eye reduction mode to 1 using the command dial. I thought it will fire bursts of flashes b4 taking picture, but it rarely does it!

3.I am only using the camera in automatic mode as of now! As i am not very familiar with technicalities of manual mode. Any documentation/site on metering, exposures etc. would be quite useful.

Thanks In Advance! Rajeev

-- Rajeev (haraj007@yahoo.com), May 16, 2002

Answers

hi rajeev,

i too bought a similar camera and 28-135 IS USM lens. but i am not at all unhappy about the results. whats wrong with your results. i mean are they not very clear/sharp or they are pitch dark in low light (when the sun is gone) condition. under such condition the full auto mode of your camera choses very slow shutter speed, may be below 1/30sec. in this situation you should use a sturdy tripod. and ofcourse, getting the proper exposure with any camera is the most difficult task. once you achive that you will never be unhappy about your results. composition can be learnt from various photos on net and your own experience. but exposure is the task to learn. you should go for Av or M mode of your camera in most of the situation.

My point & shoot camera takes better picture in those conditions ( I tried it this time to see the difference)

because your P&S might not be capable of setting a real slow shutter speed of few second or so. whereas your EOS 300 is. so under low light condition, the auto mode takes advantage of this and sets the slowest shutter speed with the largest apperture under low light condition using the Evaluative TTL metering method.

i have shot many photos in pitch dark with EOS 300, 28-135 IS USM and 380EX flash. i am quite satisfied with the results.

you might need an external flash, especially for some extra power output. the built-in flash is not good for many situations. so an additional external flash can be useful. for some details of flash photography with Canon EOS cameras you can go through N K Guy's site.

-- sajeev (chack74@yahoo.co.in), May 16, 2002.

Don't know the 300 or the 28-105 but... 1. I never had problems (10 years) with EOS ELAN (100) and primes (50/1.8 and 100/2.8) without external flash. 2. An external flash is a very good idea (I am going to buy one).

Hope this helps.

-- Yakim Peled (yakim.peled@orange.co.il), May 26, 2002.