Hi guys still a noob here

jamesparker1250 · Feb 17, 2014

Hi just had my camera less than a week (First dslr)Have gotten a few pictures can't really get out side yet weather.Just figure I ask you guys what I can do inside to practice cause I know the only way to get better with my camera is to take pictures.Thanks for any input you guys can give me some of the first pictures I have took. :wink:

lennon33x · Feb 17, 2014

There is so much to learn about photography. The first and foremost thing you need to do are the following:
1) read the manual to your camera
2) read the manual again

Don't let it overwhelm you. Learn what the different modes mean and then spend some time learning about the exposure triangle. A good place to start is with Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure. You don't want to be in auto mode, because it limits your creative control. Start here, and have fun.

Oh and one more thing, shoot shoot shoot. Practice makes perfect

Designer · Feb 17, 2014

The portrait needs some TLC. On-camera flash is not very flattering to your subject, and it has created a hot spot on the background. You can learn how to modify the flash using various tricks. The frame is awkward because you've included way too much blank area on the left. Your subject's face is rather small in the photo, so you could crop this quite a bit and crop in portrait format while you're at it.

The candle shot is interesting. Again, too much blank space around the sides and top, but not quite enough on the bottom of this one.

hirejn · Feb 17, 2014

You can practice metering and exposure. The camera's meter is reflective, and its job is to read whatever light is reflected off of the surfaces in the frame and average them to expose as 18% gray on the negative. Therefore, if you point the camera at a black wall, but there is light on the wall, the camera will expose to make that wall gray. A white wall will be gray. It gets trickier because not everything is black and white, and different colors reflect differently under the same light. Learn how the meter works and what the results are, or get an incident meter and play with it. Learn how the different controls affect the exposure and look of the image. Shutter speed, aperture and ISO will affect exposure only in manual mode. In a program mode, only exposure compensation or exposure lock will affect exposure.