Newbiest of newbies looking for directions!

[Daleko]

Hi everyone! It’s so exciting to be here. My uncle was a professional photographer, extremely passionate about macro photography, landscapes, animals, and wildlife. Alas, I lost him to ALS a few years ago.

I’ve always liked documenting things I find pretty or interesting, but I’ve never studied anything related to photography. However, I’ve been thinking about starting, and my aunt graciously gave me one of my uncle’s last cameras, a beloved Sony Alpha 7 III with a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG lens.

I understand this is quite a professional camera, and I already feel undeserving of it. Still, I’m grateful for the opportunity to use it to take pictures he would have been happy to capture, so I’d really love to learn how to use it properly.

I tried reading other threads here on the forum, but they all seem too specific or advanced for me. I’m truly a beginner; the most experience I’ve had is with my phone’s camera (aside from old digital cameras back in the 2000s). Could someone please point me toward some extremely basic photography manuals, online courses, or study materials? I mean very basic, something at an ELI5 level.

I’d also love to receive tips or suggestions specifically related to this camera and lens, if you have any!

 

[Jeff1553 53]

Hello and welcome ....

 

[zombiesniper119 18]

Basic steeps would be as follows.

1. Read the manual.

I know real cute...... but I'm not kidding. Go to Sony's website and read the manual. Cover to cover. Once you know how it works it'll make using it a lot easier.

2. Get out and shoot.

This is really important. It doesn't matter what you shoot or in what mode your camera is in. Start easy and go out with a single learning goal in mind (shooting in a new mode or using a new editing technique) Keep it down to one thing at a time. It'l make it easier to know what thing/technique caused the outcome of each image.

There really is no better thing you can do than getting out and shooting. You can read about or be told how to, but without time behind the lens all of the theory is just that.

3. Ask questions.

You're already doing well here. Try and find specific things you would like to get knowledge on. Wide field questions can cause wide field answers. This can sometimes not be as useful as questions targeted towards a specific problem.

4. Have fun.

Sometimes this gets lost, but it really its the most important thing to help learn and enjoy photography.

 

[cgw122 147]

Pre-visualize. Remember the camera just records what you see. You make the image. A fast prime lens is a great learning tool.

 

[wfooshee1]

Sorry to hear about your uncle, but that's a very nice bit of kit you've gotten from him. Now you need to decide what kind of photography interests you the most. For just snapshots of family events, stay on the phone. For creative photography you'll need to learn the camera's operations, and you've already been directed to the owner's manual.

The owner's manual will seem overwhelming if you don't understand terms as basic as shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, which are the basic exposure controls in photography, and nearly all the settings in the camera revolve around controlling those, either manually, automatically, or some combination of set-this-and-the-camera-decides-that, which is a way of describing auto-exposure, where you set shutter speed and the camera decides on the aperture, or vice versa.

What you have to learn, and it does come with practice, is how to pick which setting you need for the type of image you want to produce, and then how will that setting be compromised by the other settings and the amount of light available. For sports you want a fast shutter speed, but when shooting indoors there may not be enough light.

Pick a general scene. Shoot it with different settings and experiment, and see what the results are. Some settings will work, some won't. Some shots will not be focused on what your thought you were looking at. There will be frustration, but there will be reasons for unexpected results, and figuring our those reasons arms you with knowledge for the future.

I started 50 years ago when my Dad gave me his obsolete Voigtlander folding rangefinder with a 50mm lens and no automation, a Weston light meter, and told me to shoot Kodachrome and go have fun. Talk about the deep end... I've never made photography my living, but I'm a serious and reasonably skilled "hobbyist." I shoot wildlife, airshows, moto racing, and I've even done a fair job with a couple of family weddings, usually as a second shooter.

When I started, I did have a basic understanding of how shutter speed and aperture affected an image, and how they needed to be balanced for the exposure. If you don't have that understanding, that's the first thing to learn about. I can't really recommend any specific how-to books or videos, but understanding light and exposure is the key to being a photographer.

You'll eventually be frustrated by the fact that the lens you have won't reach out there to capture distance subjects if you're trying to shoot sports, wildlife, or events, but it'll be great for scenics, sunsets, and landscapes. You'll also discover what lenses cost, and that may drive you out of the hobby, or make you more determined to to improve your equipment level responsibly.

Don't be afraid to post results and ask questions like, "I expected result A but got this instead. Why? What should I do differently?"

 

[TJMcG118 1]

I learned photography by going to school, but I was already an adult, so I had to seek out adult education classes.

If you have a vocational school near you, check to see what they offer for photography education. Check for adult education programs at local schools or institutions. In the U.S. we have community colleges that offer basic beginner classes all the way up to degrees in various fields. If you can find that kind of instruction, you will be taught by accomplished photographers and will not have to reinvent the wheel every time you run up against a new challenge.

I found that for me at least, a structured curriculum that starts at the beginning and works up to the many specific branches like nature, landscape, portraiture, closeup, etc., etc., was the best way to learn. The first class you take should show you how a camera works and explain exposure clearly until it becomes second nature. When I started, it was easier, since cameras were considerably less sophisticated and low-tech. (I once talked to a "professional fine art photographer" who told me he was self-taught, then asked, "Which setting is the one for depth of field, shutter speed, or aperture? I can never remember that...")

After learning the camera, we learned to develop and print film in the darkroom, but today you will need to learn to use software to "develop" your digital images. There is no picture until the light striking the sensor is processed, just as there was no picture on a negative until it was developed in chemicals. What kind of software depends on how far you want to take your craft, and what you propose to do with the pictures.

Photography can be an expensive hobby, so consider what you ultimately may want to do with it. Will you take vacation pictures and pictures of your cat for an album or social media, or will you go to work for a professional football team as their official photographer? Want to shoot weddings? Corporate boardrooms? Wildlife to sell to outdoor magazines? There are a million specialties you can aspire to or you can just do it for fun and personal fulfillment. All of these require different disciplines, different skills, and different equipment, but the first thing you need to do is to learn about the camera and how it turns light into pictures.

Good luck.

 

[P88RTE]

Hi everyone! It’s so exciting to be here. My uncle was a professional photographer, extremely passionate about macro photography, landscapes, animals, and wildlife. Alas, I lost him to ALS a few years ago.

I’ve always liked documenting things I find pretty or interesting, but I’ve never studied anything related to photography. However, I’ve been thinking about starting, and my aunt graciously gave me one of my uncle’s last cameras, a beloved Sony Alpha 7 III with a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG lens.

I understand this is quite a professional camera, and I already feel undeserving of it. Still, I’m grateful for the opportunity to use it to take pictures he would have been happy to capture, so I’d really love to learn how to use it properly.

I tried reading other threads here on the forum, but they all seem too specific or advanced for me. I’m truly a beginner; the most experience I’ve had is with my phone’s camera (aside from old digital cameras back in the 2000s). Could someone please point me toward some extremely basic photography manuals, online courses, or study materials? I mean very basic, something at an ELI5 level.

I’d also love to receive tips or suggestions specifically related to this camera and lens, if you have any!

Michael Freeman's Photo School Fundamentals

 

[cgw122 147]

Once online resources spread and deepened, formal "classes" thinned. I tried them 20 yrs ago as a rookie and decided then they were either too basic or too closely tied to the instructors' often limited visions. I learned more from hanging out with friends who were pros, mostly young editorial shooters and MUAs hustling to establish careers early days in the analog-digital transition. An unusual circumstance, true, but it was real world and dynamic. Those quick lighting set-ups in Toronto alleys with a MUA working out of van for a fast shoot were fun.Took me beyond the basics quick.

 

[greybeard38 11]

Right now you are a bit overwhelmed with it. Like others have said, read the manual to find out what all the buttons and dials do and how to use them and then shoot, shoot, shoot.

 

[tinytmp1 1]

Hi everyone! It’s so exciting to be here. My uncle was a professional photographer, extremely passionate about macro photography, landscapes, animals, and wildlife. Alas, I lost him to ALS a few years ago.

I’ve always liked documenting things I find pretty or interesting, but I’ve never studied anything related to photography. However, I’ve been thinking about starting, and my aunt graciously gave me one of my uncle’s last cameras, a beloved Sony Alpha 7 III with a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG lens.

I understand this is quite a professional camera, and I already feel undeserving of it. Still, I’m grateful for the opportunity to use it to take pictures he would have been happy to capture, so I’d really love to learn how to use it properly.

I tried reading other threads here on the forum, but they all seem too specific or advanced for me. I'm truly a beginner and just like finding the right black men hairstyles the most experience I've had is with my phone's camera (aside from old digital cameras back in the 2000s). Could someone please point me toward some extremely basic photography manuals, online courses, or study materials? I mean very basic, something at an ELI5 level.

I’d also love to receive tips or suggestions specifically related to this camera and lens, if you have any!

Search "Sony A7 III beginner tutorial" on YouTube and you will find walkthroughs for your exact camera. Read "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson, it is the best beginner book for learning the basics. Start shooting in Aperture Priority mode rather than full manual while you are learning and just go out and shoot as much as possible. You have an incredible camera and a beautiful reason to use it.