Hey Americo,


I think there is some pretty good advice here so far. I would also encourage you to shoot outside in good light. I also think you should read the 5D manual if you havn't done so yet, or check out the 5D tutorial videos provided by Canon. Sometimes AF doesn't work well indoors in low light and in a mirror. You should shoot outside for now, and that includes outside of your car too,and then later you could add a flash. Also be aware , that it may require 1 second for the camera to acquire focus initially.


I would strongly suggest not using Manual Mode for now. You should try Program Mode outdoors just to see if everything is working properly then you can see what settings the camera picks, and make a mental note of that. Then after shooting in Program Mode for a while you should try AV Mode, where you select the Aperture and the camera picks the shutter-speed. If you want a deep DOF, use a narrow aperture, which is a larger number, f/8 is a good starting point, then try f/4, and f/2.8. Shoot the exact same thing but with different aperture values. Then look at the results on your monitor and see how the aperture affects the DOF. You also need to learn how to rotate a vertical picture on your monitor, so that we may see it rightside up, this can also be accomplished in camera, via a setting.


You should also set your ISO to Auto for now, and your white balance to Auto. If you want to experiment later, then you can choose the appropriate White Balance settings for certain conditions, like indoors, suuny, flash or flourescent. I wouldn't worry about the gray card and custom white balance for right now.


You need to familiarize yourself with the AF settings on your Camera, like One Shot and AI Servo. You need to understand how the camera picks an AF sensor point. I would recommend that you only stick to One Shot AF for now. You need to learn how to shoot with center AF point only, and you need to learn how to half press the shutter button until focus is achieved and then reframe your subject for proper composition and then press the shutter button the rest of the way to snap the picture.


Until you can grasp these concepts, I wouldn't recommend that you buy any other equipment.


www.usa.canon.com/.../controller


I hope this will help you get started.


Rich