New Guy Here; Looking for Tips

[cheapLEY]

Hi everyone!

I'm new here at the forum, and I'm also a beginning photographer. I'm a Freshman in college, and I just completed a semester long course in Digital Photography (On my way to a Graphic Design major). The course was very enlightening and a lot of fun, but I'm a little disappointed, as well. We spent a lot of time learning to do color correction and those sorts of things with Photoshop, which, after seeing the difference it makes, is very helpful. However, we didn't spend as much time as we had hoped on the photography aspect. We basically learned the basics of composition (Leading lines, Rule of Thirds, etc.), and that was it.

So basically, I'm looking for links, or tips, on anything else. Mainly, I want to learn a bit about my camera. I have a Sony Cyber-shot, DSC-W55. It's 7.2 megapixels, and it produced what I think are some absolutely spectacular prints, especially for a little point and shoot camera (I didn't want to drop the money on a DSLR and find out that I didn't like Photography, or didn't have an eye for it, or something similar.).

I created a thread here in the General Gallery (http://thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=103329), so it would be awesome to get some more comments over there.

However, like I said, I'm looking for tips and links about composition and such, and also about my camera. I'd like to learn about aperture and exposure, and whether I can even control those on manually with my camera, as, unfortunately, we didn't cover that in class.

Any help is appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[Sideburns]

Hi everyone!

I'm new here at the forum, and I'm also a beginning photographer. I'm a Freshman in college, and I just completed a semester long course in Digital Photography (On my way to a Graphic Design major). The course was very enlightening and a lot of fun, but I'm a little disappointed, as well. We spent a lot of time learning to do color correction and those sorts of things with Photoshop, which, after seeing the difference it makes, is very helpful. However, we didn't spend as much time as we had hoped on the photography aspect. We basically learned the basics of composition (Leading lines, Rule of Thirds, etc.), and that was it.

So basically, I'm looking for links, or tips, on anything else. Mainly, I want to learn a bit about my camera. I have a Sony Cyber-shot, DSC-W55. It's 7.2 megapixels, and it produced what I think are some absolutely spectacular prints, especially for a little point and shoot camera (I didn't want to drop the money on a DSLR and find out that I didn't like Photography, or didn't have an eye for it, or something similar.).

I created a thread here in the General Gallery (http://thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=103329), so it would be awesome to get some more comments over there.

However, like I said, I'm looking for tips and links about composition and such, and also about my camera. I'd like to learn about aperture and exposure, and whether I can even control those on manually with my camera, as, unfortunately, we didn't cover that in class.

Any help is appreciated.

Thank you.

I would seriously consider a meeting with the coordinator of your program if you didn't cover aperture and shutter speed and ISO and all that in your program. That's extremely sad...
Perhaps they saved it for second semester...but still...kind of seems weird, cause that's a lot of time they could have used to teach you guys that.

 

[cheapLEY]

He mentioned the fact that we didn't cover it in class, but he seemed unconcerned. It really is a very general class (It was not required for fulfillment of my major for Graphic Design); it seemed more aimed at hobby shooters. I did learn a lot, I'm not denying that, or trying to cut down the class, because I loved it, and with the way the class went, I don't see how he could have squeezed anything else in. The main focus of the class was to learn the basic of composition and color corrections in Photoshop.

My understanding is that he is trying to set up and advanced Digital Photography class, but it probably won't happen at least until 2008, and I'm impatient.

I've tried looking online for stuff, but it's hard to find stuff that is clear and concise.

 

[keith204]

http://web.canon.jp/imaging/enjoydslr/part2/2Ab.html

There's a Canon site, that explains aperture at a practical level. It gives some examples which helped me when I first started.

Navigate around to find the shutter speed pages, and any other information you want. This applies to Canon DSLR cameras (XT/XTi mainly) but the concepts behind this stuff will be very valuable to a beginning photographer.

 

[cheapLEY]

Thanks for the link; I haven't look through it all, yet, but it does seem to be what I am looking for.

 

[sinnedone]

http://web.canon.jp/imaging/enjoydslr/part2/2Ab.html

There's a Canon site, that explains aperture at a practical level. It gives some examples which helped me when I first started.

Navigate around to find the shutter speed pages, and any other information you want. This applies to Canon DSLR cameras (XT/XTi mainly) but the concepts behind this stuff will be very valuable to a beginning photographer.

Thanks for the link. A couple of canon only details but over all a nice introduction ino the features and abilities of a dslr.

 

[*Knowledge*]

Thanks for the link Keith. :thumbsup:

 

[MRivera]

interesting link...Thanks. I am new at photography. Does any one knows of a good book to go along with the owners manual?