Photograpy Question

[Hsut77]

I know some of you are excellent photographers and I was wondering if you could share some of your knowledge.

My Wife got me a Cannon EOS 400d for my 30th birthday (I told her I wanted a semi good camera, she told that to the guy at the camera shop and I ended up with one of the best amateur digital SLR cameras around) ps. VERY HAPPY!!

As I live in a small town the only photography courses are for point and shoot cameras and are basically for people who have never used a digi cam before.

My question is - are there any books, websites, correspondence courses etc that can help me to use my new camera. I would hate to always use it on 'auto' or the preset settings.

Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[waruikazi]

Because it is a digital camera it cost you nothing to have a look at your pictures to see what they turn out like. So i would just suggest that you have a play around with it, adjusting the appeture, shutter speed etc to see what affects you get. Rather than spending nearly as much as your camera on some Tafe course.

 

[nightowl]

There is heaps of ebooks on digital photography out there....just gotta know where to get 'em

I have sent you a PM...

 

[Hsut77]

adjusting the appeture, shutter speed etc . .

This is why I need some help, adjust what in the who now?????? Wasn't expecting a SLR so I don't know a great deal about them.

Thanks Nightowl, will check i out.

 

[nuthn2do]

http://photo.net/

 

[Hsut77]

bump

 

[Tatelina]

Wheres Pugsly when you need him?

This is why I need some help, adjust what in the who now?????? Wasn't expecting a SLR so I don't know a great deal about them.

Thanks Nightowl, will check i out.

Hehehe The aperture is the name for the hole in the lens that lets light in.. Also called a 'F stop'. F22 is a tiny tiny hole....whilst F4 is a biiiiiig hole letting the most light in.
Hehehe.. I've read a few books (that I convieniently cant find atm) that I'm pretty sure came from book stores like Dymocks or Angus and Robertson.
Congrats on a funky camera! Have fun with it.

 

[smacdonald]

Ken Rockwell has some good info on his site:

http://www.kenrockwell.com

He mainly uses Nikons, but the theory is obviously the same regardless of the brand of camera.

If you want to take good photos, the camera is virtually irrelevant (athough you've got a really good one). Digital SLRs nowadays are all incredibly good. What's going to make the difference is your choice of lenses. My favourite lens for reptile photography is my 105mm macro lens with Vibration Reduction.

105mm means the 'length' of the lens. Higher numbers give more magnifying power. So if you wanted to take a picture of something 50 metres away, you want a long lens (~300mm). If you want to take pictures of habitat, you need a wide lens (~18mm) to take all the trees in. You can of course buy zoom lenses (e.g., 18-200mm) that give you more flexibility. Longer lenses are good when dealing with angry venomous snakes. Zoom lenses are never going to give you images that are as sharp as a fixed focal length lens - there's a trade off between convenience and image quality. What you buy will depend on what sort of photographs you want to take. I like images that are so sharp you can see every detail of the tiniest feature on the animal.

Macro means that you get a 1:1 reproduction ratio. This lets you do close-up photography.

Vibration Reduction reduces camera shake, so it gives you clearer (=less blurry) pics. Canon call this technology Image Stabilization (IS).

All modern lenses are auto-focus, but different lenses will auto-focus at different speeds. It's very frustrating waiting for your lens to try to focus while your quarry runs under the nearest log.

Make sure you take a memory card or your camera to your local camera store when you're test-driving lenses. Take heaps of photos on a few different lenses and then have a look at those pics at home.

I always take pictures on the manual setting (so I manually select my shutter speed and aperture). I find that letting the camera decide that stuff will result in less than perfect pictures (e.g., they'll always be correctly exposed, but they might be blurry because the camera selected a shutter speed that was too slow).


Hope this helps,

Stewart

 

[junglepython2]

The manual that comes with the 400 explains all the basics.

 

[nuthn2do]

I would suggest you read the manual over until your eyes bleed. It will explain all the basics and how to access and use them on that specific camera.

 

[Marz]

Read the manual..it has some good info in it, join a photography group online for some extra help and then get out an experiment. Experimentation is the best way of learning and because it's digital, it costs no more than your time.

A good photography group based in Melbourne is http://www.passionforpixels.com/ but I warn you now, once you start with digital slr photography, it becomes quite an obessession! Enjoy.

Cheers Marz

 

[Gut-Axe]

The manual that comes with the 400 explains all the basics.

I would suggest you read the manual over until your eyes bleed. It will explain all the basics and how to access and use them on that specific camera.

Exactly. It was this time exactly a week ago (true story) that I went to Harvey Norman because they had the ‘18 Months Interest Free’ thing going down and I got a Canon EOS 400D too with the Twin Lens Pack (with the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 Lens and Canon EF 75-300mm f4.0-5.6 Telephoto Lens) and some extras. Basically I did what nuthn2do and junglepython2 suggested. I read the big manual, the software guide (and installed it all), all the leaflets (the one on the macro lenses is quite handy as is the other one) and then I read through the Pocket Guide and tried everything out in it (everything set to “Auto” basically).

Right now I am going through the big manual again with the camera in my hands just to test everything out. This is basically how info has to sink in with me (reading it twice etc). I’d pretty much just suggest you really get to know the camera first and what it can do and then try and find a book or online guide for example that suits a digital SLR with the 400D’s features. Then I’d probably look into the actual art (I suppose that’s what you call it) of taking photos and I suppose even go a step further and get to know a program like PhotoShop for enhancing photos and stuff like that.

So yeah, that’s what I’m going to do and like you I am a total n00b that just got a 400D. Each to their own though I suppose. Other than that I hope you have fun with your new camera and take some awesome pics -