What do you fellow beginners think is the most effective way to learn when it comes to getting the most out of your camera and starting to take good photos? I realise this question is very subjective but I'd like to know how others are getting on out of curiosity. Have you jumped in at the deep end and gone straight to manual? Have you spent hours on aperture priority and then spent hours on shutter priority? Do you practice every day?
Please let me know how you've been learning, what's helped you, and what you wouldn't recommend. Thanks!
Lewis
You have several resources available, some better than others. First, the owner's manual which came with your camera does not instruct you in the why of a setting, only how to turn the setting on or off or somehow alter a setting. For specific examples of how a function alters your final result you need more information - and the realization that photography has many rules which operate on a sliding scale of if this, then that. My personal favorite for this sort of camera-to-result education would be the Magic Lantern Guides for a specific camera. I've placed a link to the series in this section of the forum. Other excellent guides are available in book form or on line. Use them.
IMO educating yourself in the skills required to have good technical results is, of course, only a small portion of the education required. Many personal skills and talents come into play such as having that good eye you have heard discussed so much. Certainly the greatest skill you can possess or acquire would be the patience of the thinking process which occurs before and after the actual shutter click. Studying the results of your own and other photographers surely must be included in this process.
Burn bits. You have a digital camera, no? You can take 1k shots and thrown them all away without costing you a cent. Using your gear to become familiar with your gear is essential. If you only pull out your camera for special occasions, you'll never remember how to get the set up right. Take a lot of photos but, when you are in your learning mode, try to select one subject at any one time and change only one thing at any time. Just as if you were selecting which setting at the optometrist's office gave you the clearest vision - A or B - you should confine your changes to only one value at one time; either/or. Having a choice of A, B and C gets very confusing and results in less learning in more time.
Become good at the basics before you try the more difficult.
I tend to suggest you begin using your camera as a teaching tool. Use the automatic settings on your camera at first and look at the results along with the image profile; f-stop, shutter speed, ISO, etc. Take notes, lots of notes. Pay attention to what the camera detects as a correct setting and determine what you might change in a manual setting. Eventually, you'll want to try those manual settings and change, for example, just aperture (Av priority) for this shot and then again for the next shot by "bracketing" what the camera does automatically; one higher and one lower. (Keep in mind when you change aperture the camera will want to also change shutter speed and possibly ISO.) Then spend time examining your results compared to the camera's results. SD cards and back up hard drives are pretty cheap so fill them up with your saved shots. Shoot in RAW (or RAW + jpeg) format which will enable greater control over your final results. In six month's time, shooting consistently, you should see noticeable improvements in your results. Always look backwards to see where you are headed in the future. Determine what sort of photography interests you and work on, say, your candid shots before you begin your stop action sports shots. Your landscape shots before your low light/nighttime/urban shots and so forth.
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