Getting into photography - need advice

[Pincher]

Been lent a Nikon D70 by a colleague with a view to buy it at a good price (i.e. cheap! :D) but I don't really know what I'm doing.

Always used a digital compact on Auto with OK results but would like to be able to take nice pictures consistently.

I really need to learn about ISO's, Aperture settings, shutter speed etc etc - basically from a point of view of never having picked up a camera before.

I'll be having a play with it at the weekend but are there any books out there that explain the above in a really easy to understand form?

I'm guessing that a course at the local adult educamacation centre might be worthwhile?

[CarMad]

Have a look at the guides in the link at the top of this forum, take time to understand what they mean and why you might use one setting and not another.

But first and foremost take the camera out for a walk and just play with it. You won't be a start in 5 minutes and it will take you a good while to get to grips with. But the results can be stunning when you do, always great when you get complements from your shots.

I got an idiots guide book off Amazon that was great to give me the basics but you never stop learning or stop spending money.

[CarMad]

This is good to go through to step you though the basics. I know its Canon but the principles are identical.

Enjoy! Digital SLR camera

[Pincher]

Good link - thanks!

Any other suggestions?

[biturbo]

To be honest mate, that's the best guide I have ever found too. You'll find that to get best results with a DSLR you usually specialise into a certain type of shot and get to know what is the best settings for it.

I do most of mine in indoor sports where the lighting source is either close and bright or outside of the light source and reaaaly dark. I also do a lot of portrait work, but use my own lights to produce the effects.

I would shudder at trying to do a good landscape shot!

At the end of the day, just shoot away at different settings, get back to the computer and see what you think. It's your opinions on what looks good that matter - not everyone else's. (unless you're selling them! )

[gizze]

gIzzE's guide to photgraphy.....

1. stick the camera in Aperture Priority mode. The smaller the number the more light is let in, but the smaller the area in focus will be. Good for making part of the image in focus and the rest blurred. Will also allow you to shoot in low light.

The higher the number the more you can get in focus because the aperture hole is smaller, this also means you have less light coming in.

2. ISO.

Learn to use iso, smaller number less noise but less sensitive to light.

Up to 400 iso is usually pretty noise free.

800 up starts to get noisy, but you can shoot in pretty low light with iso 800 and 1600, so try them.

Combine ISO and Aperture and you should be able to shoot everything.

Only other thing to watch is white balance, change it when going to idoor lighting, for everything else auto should be fine.

Here endeth the lesson.

[Frodo]

I knew what White Balance was in theory, but now I have my Canon 450D I unerstand in practice. Basically I took the same picture in the different white balance configs. Under a tungsten light with WB set to standard the picture is too "yellow", changing to daylight WB setting makes it even worse. However, change to fluorescent or tungsten and the colour is much more representative.

[CarMad]

You need to play with it and learn what it can do. Sometimes it helps, others it causes problems.

For instance if you are taking a dark sunset shot, you might want to set it to daylight, the sky will look lovely and orange and really change the image. You can also shoot in raw and change the white balance afterwards.

Just play and see what things can do, shoot in raw as you can tweak and play with some of the settings and revert them back again if you want to.

I'm off to Oulton Park tomorrow to play with an L .... can't wait.