I'm new, I think I am less than a beginner

[Orchida]

Hello, I am brand new today to this site.
I'm Scottish but live in the Lot Valley in south-west France.
I've been looking at the "beginner's forum" and they all talk about very complicated stuff - I'm worried that I don't even make it to beginner level.

I've been taking photographs forever, but in spite of not-bad equipment the vast majority have been simply taken on automatic. Occasionally a shot is wonderful but it is pure luck. To change things, I'm joining you lot on this site and I think I need to consider adding filters and a tripod to my collection.

The best Christmas present I got was a macro filter - partly for flowers (I am an official orchid spotter! - and pretty much a beginner at that too) but I need some help with the images I'm getting. Will post separately.....

 

[Crayons]

So what? Learn what they are talking about. And it doesn't matter what your photo's look like as long as they mean something to you. Just because you dont have 50 million dollars of gear doesn't mean you cant take good photo's. Photography isn't a competition.

 

[mom2eight]

Welcome to the forum. Looking forward to seeing some of your photos.

 

[Derrel]

Welcome to the forum. I'm sorry your warm and cordial introduction was met right off the bat by a somewhat frosty "welcome" by our esteemed Beantown member. Please, feel free to ask questions. I spend a lot of time here trying to help people, and so do many,many other fine people. Look forward to seeing more posts from you.

 

[RancerDS]

Welcome!

Looks like you've got pretty decent gear. You have two zooms and your macro to cover a huge range of shots.

I'm not much more "experienced" than you, other than wanting more control over the camera outside of the automatic or program modes. Yet I still flip it over for convenience's sake because of the lesser chance of a poor or wasted frame. Have found lots of articles on Wikipedia which have helped me along immensely, especially when doing my treasure hunting for particular film cameras. Here is an example - Sunny 16 rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For advancement: The first thing you will want to pay attention to in manual, aperture- or shutter-priority settings is your camera's exposure meter. You can practice getting that lined up to know you have enough light getting through. Once you are able to align that to where it's a small +/- or a 0, then you can start thinking about if you want your frames brighter or darker.

Plus you will probably get into post-processing (PP) one day... but everything in it's own good time.

 

[Orchida]

Thanks, I've understood shutter speeds and f stops for many years but just never applied them - don't ask me why. I do use "quick-fix" in Photoshop but obviously there's a long way to go there too!