Around 8 years ago I bought a 300D Digital Rebel along with a pair of zoom IS lenses the 75-300mm and 28-135mm.(I didn't know what I was doing!)
Because I'm in the Real Estate business those lenses were not helping me a bit trying to get good interior and exterior home and building photographs so I decided I needed a wide angle lens to get the job done, so four years ago I purchase a 16-35mm 1:2.8 L USM and to be honest after four years I truly believe I'm not getting to much out of this expensive lens.
I have seen on the internet pictures taken with that particular lens and they are awesome! So where is the problem, is it the camera or the photographer behind the camera?? :-(
Somebody told me that the Digital Rebel will never make justice to this kind of lens, I have been considering buying a better camera but I don't want to make an expensive mistake again!
So I'm asking you experts what shall I do, any suggestions?
Please advise, I will be very thankful!
Regards,
Manuel.
For wide angle interior on a 300D you would be better off with a Canon 10-22 in your bag.
The 16-35 L Is for these kind of shots really needs to be on a full frame camera (5D, 1Ds series).
Take a digital photography class or pick up a couple digital photography books.
I say digital because if you don't know how to process the files from the camera, it won't matter which camera or lens you buy.
For interior real estate shots it's all about the lighting, so make sure you learn about this as well.
With the first one, if you've exposed and focused for the jacuzzi at ISO 800, it's not really surprising if the TV inside looks crap. Can't see exif for the second but the left half of the photo is bright and sharp, it's the right side that's a problem.
You can't POSSIBLY get images that look processed without processing them. Straight out of camera is like film negatives, uninteresting without the post work.
Buying a full frame ultrawide lens for a crop camera is usually done by people who don't know any better. People need to understand focal lengths before buying a focal range for a specific purpose.
mflowers1 wrote:
...four years ago I purchase a 16-35mm 1:2.8 L USM and to be honest after four years I truly believe I'm not getting to much out of this expensive lens.
I have seen on the internet pictures taken with that particular lens and they are awesome! So where is the problem, is it the camera or the photographer behind the camera??
I think it's a bit of both.
A full-frame camera like an EOS 5D would take better advantage of the lens than a small-frame camera like a Rebel, but some of the problem is also the way it's being used.
For example, in the first picture you posted you had your sensor sensitivity set for ISO 800. That's good for situations with dim light, but can result in "noisy" pictures. If you have enough light you can get better IQ (image quality) by using lower settings...ISO 100 or ISO 200, for example.
In that picture there was plenty of light outside (since the shutter speed was 1/250 second) but not enough light inside to match it. What you could have done is turned down the ISO to 200, slowed the shutter to 1/60 to match the ISO change, and then used flash to increase the light inside the room to match the light outside.
Or, instead of using flash, you could have taken two or more shots (with the camera on a tripod) at different shutter speeds and combined the best parts of each one into a single picture. That kind of "high dynamic range imaging" can be done in several different ways, so that's something to look into in more detail.
In the picture of the balcony there isn't a lot of noise, because there aren't any dark shadows, but ISO 800 surely wasn't needed there because your shutter speed was a blazing 1/1250. You only need fast shutter speeds like that if you're trying to stop fast-moving action like race cars or football players in motion.
In addition to lower ISO settings having less noise, you also get better (more saturated) colors, and more contrast, so the pictures look "snappier" or have more "pop" as some people like to say.
Before you think about getting a newer and more expensive camera, learn first how to get the best exposures you can get (the balance of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed) and how to create the best possible lighting (by using available light, and by adding your own).
Matching the look and feel of the light inside to the light outside is one of the most important aspects of architectural photography, but with some study and practice it can be done well, and you don't need a lot of expensive equipment to do it once you know how.
By the way, your English seems very good, so there are two books I know of that I think would help you a lot.
The first one, How To Take Photos That Move Houses, specifically addresses the topic of photography for the real estate profession. It covers the choice of lenses and angles of view, lighting, etcetera.
