Super Beginner! Ahhhh. Help!

[whitley]

Hi all! I just found the photo forum! It looks really fun, you guys have an awesome community here! Anyways, my question is what books do you suggest for a beginner photog? I am getting a dslr pretty soon (I'm thinking the Olympus E-510)... and what to be able to use it. I have messed around with my moms cameras and I love photoshop! But, I don't really know what I'm doing I just play around... I am in college as a business management and entrepreneurship major and I am thinking about doing professional photographer (in the future!!!). I really want to start working on my portfolio, so any tips for that? sorry, this is random and all over the place (I have class in 5 minutes! haha) Anyways, any tips for a total newb?
Whit

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

One of the most recommended books is 'Understanding Exposure' by Peterson.
I have one called 'The digital Photographer's Handbook'...which might be good for a beginner. I would also suggest checking out your library, even older photography books would be OK because the basics are still the same with digital as they ever were.

When you buy an SLR camera, you are buying into a system of cameras and lenses etc. It's a good idea to look at the system and think about what you might want or need in the future. Olympus is a decent brand name, and I'm sure their DSLR cameras are pretty good...but if I were in your shoes, with aspirations of becoming a professional...I would look at what other professionals are using and ask why they use those systems. I think you will find that the vast majority of working pros use Canon or Nikon, with Pentax being next and maybe Sony (who bought out Minolta).

I'm not saying that you (or anybody) couldn't get the job done with an Olympus or any brand of camera...but there are good reasons why pros use Canon & Nikon...and you don't want to make a switch after you have already bought into a system.

 

[whitley]

Thanks so much! I was thinking the Olympus because it has the most features (like IS, the dust/len protection stuff, and some other things) in the entry level dslrs for around $1000 (with lenses) which is about how much I wanted to spend. I hadn't thought about what type of camera I would be using down the road... That makes a lot of sense!

I'm sorry for the sloppy first post on here! I really was hoping for a response by the time I got out of classes for the day, so I was hurrying to post it.

Any other tips on getting started in photography? I'll post some of my photos on here soon for some C&C. I am in the process of moving over to my new iMac!!! woowoo. hehe. My husband does web development and I mess around with pictures so it was the perfect computer (to go along with our macbook and macbook pro, lol) We are definitely mac people.