Best 2 tips for beginners

Dearest All,

I have just purchased a Canon 7D 15-85mm and plan to immediately purchase the 70-200mm F/4 IS USM lens.

There is an absolute wealth of knowledge on this forum so I thought that I would start a thread which could greatly assist 'us' beginners (or just me)!

What are your 2 BEST TIPS in taking great pictures, or actually, in anything to do with photography (maybe even post processing / HDR / anything you like). Of course don't feel limited to just 2!!!

There is so much to learn!!

Thanks a million

First tip: practise.
I got my 7D as my first (digital) SLR August 2010. I think by about April I had been averaging 30 photos per day. Now i've slowed down a bit, maybe 25/day since then. But the more you use it, the more adept you become, try out all the functions on your camera, the 7D has a lot of them. Shoot Av and see how it helps, learn when to use 'wide-open' and when to 'stop-down', shoot Tv and see why and when that's better, shoot M and realise why that's better for what situations. Try out all the focus points, and focus-point modes (single, spot, expansion, zone, all, etc), see which one is better for what situation. Learn its limitations and when it's better to use MF.

Second: Learn from others.
You've taken a good step by starting this thread, so this one may be a bit obvious. If you've got a lot of spare time, read through a lot of the threads here, pick up useful bits of info from every thread you read. People here have been writing 'tips-and-tricks' on various subjects (I swear i'll write one soon), the latest from Neuro is about Auto-Focus Micro-Adjustment, which will be very useful on your upcoming 70-200, the others are also good for expanding knowledge.

Third tip: Buy a circular-polariser.

1) Photography would be nothing without light. Learn how to find and harness natural light and modify it when necessary (reflector, anyone?). Once you've learned how to seek out and utilize beautiful natural light, you may want to leap into flash photography and learn techniques that will help you create beautiful light anytime, anywhere (trust me, that can be quite liberating).

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6031/6...f28b833cf3.jpg
New Neighbor by budrowilson, on Flickr

2) Oh yeah, and buy a circular polarizer. :-)

1, understand exposure, histogram, and shoot in raw.
2, try 50mm1.4 or 85mm1.8 or both before you get the zoom

1. Never leave the camera at home. You never know when an amazing photo opportunity might come by.

2. Always take the camera with you.

1. Practice and analyze the metadata of your shots to see what worked and what didn't.

2. Get a good book like Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson, read it and try out the techniques.

3. Even if it's the cheapo EF 50 f/1.8II, get a prime lens and experiment with wide apertures/depth of field.

4. Shoot in RAW/JPEG mode while you are learning. That'll show you how much power you have to manipulate RAW files. The ability to change white balance alone can save shots (especially when you mistakenly choose the wrong setting, forget etc, and especially when shooting a prime a wide apertures indoors).

5. Experiment with an external flash in full midday sun to break down heavy stripey shadows.

Have fun!

• Sean's tip about light is the best. Photography is about capturing light. Light is everything, without it there is nothing to capture. I find myself looking at looking at everything in that respect, I have become a hunter of natural light that will make that special picture.
• The three variables ISO, shutter speed and aperture all three combine to make one correct exposure. The camera can do this itself, with you only taking control of what you want to control.
• The 7D if using the ISO Auto mode is fully automatic. What that means is that if you are in Auto and you are setting the other two functions yourself it will adjust the ISO to compensate. This is a negative for a someone starting out and a positive for someone with skill. The reason it is a negative is the camera will show proper exposure and it will let you have your ISO to high. High ISO is ok at night or when it starts getting darker, it still degrades your image. Watch your ISO, try and keep it low or set it manually.
• Aperture, there was an old saying that went something like this (maybe not exactly). "Be at 8 and be there". Very seldom unless I am doing landscape am I above 11, at some point around 13 your IQ will start falling off.
• Your camera will give you as much control as you want. In fully Auto you let it do the work. In TV mode you only select the shutter speed. In AV mode you are only selecting aperture. In fully Auto it is fully Auto. This allows you take take as much control as you want or feel comfortable with.

Good Luck

Being a beginner myself (first serious camera in April this year). My tips would be as follows:

Shoot in RAW. Boring. But it helps me see why photos went wrong, when I see an under or over-exposed image, rather than just ditching it, I have to correct it. Because I'm consciously correcting it, my nature means that I want to know why it was wrong, and how I could have avoided that happening. I think if I shot JPEG, my pride would stop me from analysing too much, because there's nothing (/less) you can do about it.

Share photographs for critique. You will get you lots of contrasting comments, many critiques will make you reconsider an image, questioning your own thoughts about it, and the methods you used when you took it.

Hmmmm. A lot of good advice. Much of the good advice I got from other forum members when I was first starting out has already been covered. A few preventative measures include 1) back up your photos, maybe with multiple back ups. I have my photos on my computer hard drive, an external hard drive at my house and then an external hard drive I keep away from my house. 2) insurance. Check your policies and make sure all this expensive gear is covered. You may need a separate floater policy. A couple of other thoughts. By ruthless when deleting photos. Especially at 8 gps, you can easily end up with a lot of the same shot. Only keep what you need. I tend to keep almost all of my family but only 1 in 10 of birds or 1 in 4 of nature shots. Just makes overall management that much easier. Regarding taking photos, check your settings the second you pull the camera out of the bag and adjust as needed, be patient and be creative.

Most of all, enjoy. :)
Brant

For me, the most important two have been covered: Practice, practice, practice and Seek advice/suggestions from others. Beyond that I do have a couple more:

1. look at lots of pictures, critically analyze them and ask yourself "what is it about this picture that I like/don't like"

2. In addition to asking questions about your own pictures, equipment, techniques, ask lots of questions from others about the same, i.e what settings did you use, what equipment, How did you do that etc. The people on this forum are excellent about giving advice or suggestions

Good luck

For me the fastest way to pick up techniques was to read about them and try it and then try it again.

Places I got tips are The Digital Picture.com, Adorama Learning Center, Scott Kelby's DTownTV, Moose Peterson's Webite, and Syl Arena's website for speedliting flash tips.

I agree with the Kingb "Get a good book like Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson, read it and try out the techniques".
Bryan has a whole series of books out there. I also read and enjoyed Scott Kelby's series Digital photography, a great place to start.

Check the local library. Photography is very popular and they will most likely have a good collection.

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Originally Posted by bob williams

The people on this forum are excellent about giving advice or suggestions

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...whether you want it or not! :-D

A lot of excellent advice already:

+1 for what Sean said about 'light'. Learn how to deal with the different types of light - hard light, soft light, the color/temp of light (sun, cloud, indoor tungsten, indoor fluorescent). Light is the key.

You have a great kit weewillo. Practise, practise, practise and keep learning. This site has been indispensible for me - use it often.

Cheers and happy shooting.

Damian

Some fantastic tips there - thanks a million.

It's still absolutely p$@#ing down in Sydney so I am still yet to get out and about!

I must have looked at 100,000 pics over the past few days on your flickr sites and photography on the net which have pics from all lenses and I am slowly but surely starting to understand when you use different exposure times etc!

I was looking for a neich' little hobby and I have definitely found it

Great tips so far!

What I want to suggest is to think outside the box. Bend the rules a little:rolleyes:
If you only take photos by the rules or ideas other people have about photography(or what they like), your photos will not be so special. Try different things.
Try shooting a landscape with the longer end of your lens or try shooting a portrait with the wide end of your lens. Change perspective, lie on the ground for once or climb a tree. Those things will make your shots more special. You can also try making panorama's or HDR's. Shooting an extra photo does not cost any more, so use that as an advantage.

I must admit that I personally also tend to grab the wide angle on my lens to capture a sunset or sunrise, but the fact is that the photo can be just as nice or maybe even better when you use a longer focal length. For example, the sun looks a lot bigger when you use the long end of your lens.

Just an idea. Good luck!

Jan

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sheiky

Great tips so far!

What I want to suggest is to think outside the box. Bend the rules a little:rolleyes:
If you only take photos by the rules or ideas other people have about photography(or what they like), your photos will not be so special. Try different things.
Try shooting a landscape with the longer end of your lens or try shooting a portrait with the wide end of your lens. Change perspective, lie on the ground for once or climb a tree. Those things will make your shots more special. You can also try making panorama's or HDR's. Shooting an extra photo does not cost any more, so use that as an advantage.

I must admit that I personally also tend to grab the wide angle on my lens to capture a sunset or sunrise, but the fact is that the photo can be just as nice or maybe even better when you use a longer focal length. For example, the sun looks a lot bigger when you use the long end of your lens.

Just an idea. Good luck!

Jan

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Hmmm, you've just described pretty much my whole shooting style.
Tip 4, Buy a lensbaby control freak, all the accessories, optics, apertures, a Skink Pinhole with extra disks, adapters to every lens mount ever made, and scour ebay every day for Manual Focus Lenses. Or don't, that's my thing :p. Choose your own path, there's a lot of them out there.

ps, perfect timing Jan, I was just looking at some shots I took from Scheveningen just before I left NL, here's a sunset at 207mm:
Attachment 142

Being maybe not an absolute beginner, but still not very experienced, I've learned a few things during my years of photography. If I would pick the top two of these it would probably be:

1) Don't bother too much about photography gear. More or less any DSLR body and lens combination is capable of capturing great images. Focus on the images, not on the equipment.

2) Basic photography books are a great source of knowledge. Of course, www forums and similar sources are also great, but they don't beat a good book. Get a few basic books covering the technical stuff as well as the more artistic sides of photography.

Tip
get the 70-200 f2.8
I have both (started with the f4) quickly moved to the 2.8.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dr Croubie

Hmmm, you've just described pretty much my whole shooting style.
ps, perfect timing Jan, I was just looking at some shots I took from Scheveningen just before I left NL, here's a sunset at 207mm:
Attachment 142

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:D It's not always the easiest way, but it sure works great and it will get you different looking photos.
Glad to help out with the timing by the way :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iND

Tip get the 70-200 f2.8
I have both (started with the f4) quickly moved to the 2.8.

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I know I wouldn't trade my 70-200 f4L IS for the f2.8 version. Well the new version perhaps, but definitely not the older ones:cool:

1. tripod. this slows things down and allows one to really look at what they are trying to convey in the photograph and why. composition, depth of field, and story telling can be better achieved when one has time to go through these step by step.

2. go outdoors and shoot twice a day; once near sunrise and the other near sunset. this is called the golden light hours and everything from landscape to portrait photography tend to have a magical glow about them. this is the best natural light of the day in general and photography is all about capturing the good light.

-now go out there and post us some of your winners! and perhaps the best tip is to HAVE FUN! -Erno