I should probably be here :)

[Mattp311]

So hey, one piece of advice for a new photographer - the most important thing I should know.

 

[ac12]

#1
RTFM.
The solution to MANY questions that people have, is in the camera manual. IF people would read it. Granted some manuals are not easy to read.
If you have trouble understanding the manual, there are many 3rd party instruction books.

So BEFORE you ask a question, make an effort to figure it out yourself, by Reading The Manual.

#2
It is the photographer who makes the image, not the cost of the gear.
IOW, you cannot buy your way to better photos.
Like the line: "Oh your photo is beautiful, you must have an expensive camera."
So if you cook a great meal, you pots must be expensive.

 

[smoke665]

Remove the lens cap before you press the shutter.

 

[ac12]

Remove the lens cap before you press the shutter.

When I shot rangefinders back in the film days, that was a VERY VERY common mistake.
This lead to some/many of us using the rangefinders WITHOUT the cap. But then the filter got dirty faster.

It wasn't until the Nikon L35AF, where the lens cap had an extension that covered the viewfinder, that I stopped having that problem. If the viewfinder was dark, the cap was on the lens. But that was only when I used that camera.

Most TLRs that I remember had a lens cap that covered both the shooting and viewing lenses.
The SLR was easy, if the viewfinder was dark, you had the cap on.

 

[Strodav]

The most import thing is to enjoy photography. Those who truly enjoy it spend more time learning about the art and science of photography, pick up the skills to improve to improve, and get out with their cameras more often to capture those awesome images they enjoy for themselves and share with others.

 

[Mattp311]

ac12, you're beyond me, except your point on reading the manual. I've been through mine (FUGI X100t) and it's pretty straight forward.

Strodav, dude I love the hunt.

 

[CherylL]

Experiment! With digital you can shoot 100 and keep 2.

 

[terri]

When you're new to something, you expect to learn more. Keep that in mind when you post your work here and ask for feedback - have a thick skin when you read comments or criticism. It can be hard to be objective about your own work, but this is how we learn.

Enjoy the journey!

 

[weepete]

Composition and lighting, more than anything else, are key to good photography.

 

[Mattp311]

Thanks for the insights folks. Right now I'm trusting the automatic functions of my camera to not screw me over. I'm looking forward to getting into the manual aspects and really get off the ground creatively.

 

[ronlane]

The one thing that I'm going to suggest is the easiest thing to say yes to but is probably the hardest thing to do in photography.

Have thick skin and don't take it personally. There are people that will tear you images apart. Read what they say and judge for yourself or ask someone you trust about it.

It's going to take a while, (they say 100,000 images) but if you enjoy the journey.

 

[Shinden]

1) Know what you want to get out of photography and always be trying to get better at it. It's okay if your goal changes over time, just keep trying to improve.
My favorite way of improving: When someone tells me that something I did can be done better, I try to understand first what I did, then what their telling me about it. If I don't understand what I did "wrong," then I can't improve. Figure out why the photo makes you uncomfortable, it's (usually) not the subject.

2) (This one's fun) Learn the different uses for aperture and shutter speed, then experiment a lot. You can do many different cool things depending on how you use your settings. If you want the background to be a complete blur, that's doable. Have a street with a crowd of people walking down it and you just want to see the pattern on the ground, you can make that crowd disappear. If your shooting moving cars or airplanes, you can make them look like their parked or going mach5. Understanding how to use those two settings can help you do so many cool things.

3) Don't forget to have fun.

Sorry for giving three, I know you asked for only 1. I got excited. :3

 

[ac12]

With all the stuff above, it is very easy to get confused.

Old saying, "how do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time."
Don't try to learn too much at one, or you will choke. Take it one bite at a time.

 

[Mattp311]

My step father (who has largely introduced me to photography) provided me with a link to an article on aperture and shutter speed, which I have since lost. Can someone point me in the right direction?

 

[wfooshee]

... an article on aperture and shutter speed, ... Can someone point me in the right direction?

The most basic question in photography...

Aperture and shutter speed are two legs of the exposure triangle, with the third leg being ISO. All three must balance for proper exposure.

Aperture is the size of the iris in the lens. A large aperture (small f-number) lets in more light.

Shutter speed is how long the exposure lasts. The longer the shutter is open, the more light falls on the sensor (or film.)

ISO is a measure of sensitivity to light. In film, it was an indication of the film's ability to react to light chemically. Higher ISO (or ASA as it used to be called) was "faster" film, meaning more sensitive, requiring less exposure for an image. ISO in a digital camera is an electronic setting for gain in the sensor's amplification of the light received. In a low-light situation you can set a higher ISO to make your camera more sensitive to light, comparable to faster film.

All three settings together produce an exposure value, the amount of light on the sensor and how much that light is amplified by the camera's electronics.

All three are incremented in "stops." One stop difference either halves or doubles the exposure. If ISO 100, 1/250th and f:4 is a correct exposure, then you could change the shutter speed one direction by a stop, and the aperture or ISO the other direction by a stop, and still have correct exposure. So ISO 200, 1/125 and f:4 is still correct exposure, as is ISO 100, 1/125 and f:5.6.

Notice that doubling or halving the number for ISO and shutter doubles or halves the exposure, but the number for aperture moves differently. Aperture is a measurement of the area of the iris, so its 1-stop change is by a factor of the square root of 2, not actually of 2.

So how do you decide what to use, if literally well over a hundred combinations of the three give correct exposure? That's where experience and judgment come in, and there's no substitute for playing with the settings and learning how they affect your image.

As a rule, you want to use the lowest ISO you can get away with, as higher ISO, meaning more amplification, adds noise to the image, seen as a "grainy" effect, where color areas that should be smooth actually have many pixels of not quite the right color or exposure. So ISO can affect the "cleanliness" of the image, especially on lower-priced cameras.

Shutter speed can affect how much motion is captured in an image. You probably want a fast shutter for action shots, where for landscapes from a tripod it almost doesn't matter. There might be a creative need to introduce motion blur, giving a still frame a sense of motion. At air shows, for example, you don't want to freeze the propeller of an airplane, making it look "parked" in the sky. You want a slow enough shutter to blur the prop, but fast enough to not blur the airplane itself. On the other hand, when shooting jets at an air show, the fastest shutter you can use is probably appropriate.

Aperture affects depth of field. Large apertures (lower f-number) reduces depth of field, meaning the subject could be well focused but items in the image at a different distance will not be in focus. This is usually intentionally done to get a blurred background. A small aperture, on the other hand (larger f-number,) give a high depth of field, perhaps even nearly infinite depth of field. With that, your entire landscape image is in focus and sharp. Also, depth of field in either case will be smaller if the subject is closer to the camera, so even a small aperture can blur the background if you're focused on something very close.

Cameras usually have auto-exposure modes, as well. Fully automatic, the camera decides what it thinks is appropriate. You can also shoot aperture-priority, forcing the camera to use a specific aperture, or shutter-priority, forcing the camera to use a specific shutter speed. Again, experience and judgment are you guides here as to what is appropriate to use in a given situation.

Play with the camera, see how the images change with different combinations of the settings.