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Hi everyone,

Long time since I have posted here, mainly because I still haven't had the opportunity to buy a kit!

Anyway, looking at Santa being ncie to me this year, with either a D80 or a D200/300 (no suggestions at this point please!), and plan to just start firing off 100s of crash and burn pics to try and work out what makes a good shot and what doesn't.

However, being the pedantic, process driven freak that I am, I am wondering is there an order to how I should play around with the settings for each shot. Should I concentrate on what different exposures do before mucking around with DOF for instance, or vice versa, or is it just a matter of turning all the knobs and flicking all the levers at once to see what changes it makes? DO I take a photo of the same subject and change one setting at a time, and then start mucking around with the next etc?

Being a total novice to this, any advice in how to learn the 'tech' side of the art would be fantastic. I plan on going on a basic course to learn a bit about composition and the terminology, and understand that the best way to learn is to just rip of photo after photo and see what comes out, but every bit helps.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Bandit,
I could suggest that you get a good book while you're waiting, but nothing will replace hands on experience.
When you get your camera, go out take some photos, post them here and I'm sure you'll get lots of helpful hints on how to improve them.

Its a bit hard to say what to do, because I dont know what you already know, and the way you learn would be different to the way I do.
1 of my friends has a book "Digital Photographers Handbook" by Tom Ang and she is working her way through it bit by bit.
There are a lot of good books, and if you do a search here there are lots of recomendations.
There are tutorials here to have a look at.
When I started, I couldnt get my head around what was in the books, so I made myself some tables, and laid the data out so I could see it in a form that I could understand, then it clicked after I could see al the relationships between these settings.
You might find it easier to use a book like a text book and create a lesson plan section by section in the book. -read a section while playing with the camera and learn each section before moving on to the next.
You can also set youself some open ended exercises by setting up with a subject, start the camera in program mode, look at the data of how it wants to take the shot, and then question what would happen if I did ..... and see where that leads. The great thing about digital is that there is Exif data with each photo so you know exactly what you did when you compare results later.
Bad shots are just as good at teaching you camera settings as good ones

Bandit wrote:However, being the pedantic, process driven freak that I am, I am wondering is there an order to how I should play around with the settings for each shot.

Being pedantic, you would know you asked a question and therefore should use a question mark. But, I am just having fun.

The first thing you should do is read the manual to gain an understanding of some of the mechanics of the hardware.

I would then be inclined to set the camera to aperture priority as I feel this will help you understand:

1. The relationship between shutter speed and aperture to gain an exposure level.
2. The relationship between aperture, slow shutter speeds and camera shake!
3. The relationship between aperture, DOF and shutter speed.

Separate to this, you will need to practice composition. There are plenty of resources relating to this, however, one I found relatively useful (for this and other photographic issues) was a book/large magazine that has been floating around newsagents. I forget the name of it, but it is something like a masterclass of photography. Whilst not the best resource, it provides some good tips on the fly. It costs about $20.

Hope that helps.

Just another thought, have you downloaded the manuals for these 2 cameras your thinking of and read them yet?
If not, I think they are avaialable from Nikons site somewhere, and there are plenty of people here who can tell you where to get them if you cant find them.

I agree with "read a book while you're waiting.
However, I don't really think the order matters a great deal. Just remember that everything you do affects the total light hitting the sensor. That means, that when you change one aspect, you need to change another to compensate or you will blow your exposure.
For example, if you increase your shutter speed to stop movement, you will need to open up your lens aperture so you get the same total amount of light hitting the sensor. Since you are a self admitted nerd/pedant I will also point out you could also change the sensor's sensitivity (ISO) instead, That will have different side effects.

Hi Bandit,

I would HIGHLY recommend "Understand Exposure" by Bryan Peterson. I've only just recently rediscovered an interest in photography and this book was written SO well for beginners like us. It goes through the "basics" of aperture-shutter speed-ISO and their interrelationships. It has some basic exercises as well so you get some "hands on" practice once you have your kit.

It reads like a casual conversation from a friend...not some technical manual, so I found it great as a starting point.

The tutorials on this site would be a good place to start. Read these before you purchase your camera:

http://www.dslrusers.com/files/Exposure101.pdf

http://www.dslrusers.net/files/PHOTOGRA ... TSHELL.pdf

Then, when you have your camera, read #1 and #2 above again, using the controls on your camera. You will also benefit from reading these:

http://www.dslrusers.com/files/D70Shutt ... gnment.pdf

http://www.dslrusers.com/files/WhiteBal ... que101.pdf

We've just saved you the time and expense of looking for and paying for books! You can also ask for more assistance on this forum.

Good luck with your new hobby.

Better yet, go to your library and borrow the photography books from there. Fundamentally there's not a huge difference between digital and film SLRs. You still have to create an image based on the correct exposure that you're aiming for by adjusting the shutter speed and aperture. Of course, with digital you have the luxury of changing the ISO on the fly not to mention setting the white balance to make sure the colours turn out correct, but that's also entirely subjective.

If you want to have a book to keep and on the shelf, visit your second hand bookshops - there's some bloody amazing stuff in there!

Another great resource is the Internet. Do a search for photography tutorials or something specific that you're unsure of and you'll end up with more resources than you can poke a stick at. If it's something incredibly specific that you're stuck with, then that's what resources like forums and communities are for.

Also start looking through sites like gettyimages, flickr, deviantart - just to name a few - to look for inspiration.

Indeed you will learn more by blazing away endlessly with a dslr but you still need to know the theory and fundamentals before doing that. There's a balance to it all and the more you read and try to put it into practise when using the camera, the better you will become. The masters of photography didn't turn masters overnight. Da Vinci and Michaelangelo didn't develop their skills overnight either.

Hope that helps.

Thanks guys, all helps a lot.

Off for some reading I go... perfect way to pass the time in transit from Melbourne to Tokyo