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One of the lessons that I learned from the NYIP course is the importance of using a tripod. If know that it isn't practical all of the time, but it does result in better pictures such as the cave picture posted by KD5NRH.

In addition to my full-size Bogen tripod I own on of these:

My first camera was an Argus Seventy-Five. I got it for Christmas when I was eight years old.

G26ster - Very good explanation.
I have heard the same questions about what kind of camera, lens, exposure, film, etc. A good shooting/hunting analogy would be when a person shoots a trophy buck and is asked what kind of gun, scope, what grain bullet, etc.

I am reluctant to post this, but I think that the NYIP (New York Institute of Photography) course is a good way for a beginning photographer to learn the basics. Buy any photography magazine and there will be full page advertisments from the school. When I took the course, many years ago, I found it to be very good. The course covers, in detail, all of the subjects that G26ster talks about in his posts. IMO, if you complete all of the course material and exercises, it would be equivalent to getting an AA degree in photography. Obviously, you don't get college credit, but I believe that the knowledge and experience would be comparable. You don't get the face-to-face feedback as you would from other classes, but when I took the class the instructors would evaluate your assignments and send a cassette tape with their comments.

I have a couple of reservations about this course. It was very expensive for my budget, but you can complete it at your own pace. The course material was a bit outdated. Since I took it, I have heard that have revised the course to include digital photography and video. The few pieces of equipment that they supplied was low quality. I don't know the current price, but it may be worth checking them out.

Spluloacle wrote:F stop BTW is the number that tells you your focal point (i think) So if you shoot an image with an f 1.8 you have a small amount of picture in focus and the rest is blurred. A pic shot with an f 3.5 is pretty sharp with a nice background blur. GENERALLY.

ISO basically (how I understand it anyway) is a low number lets in less light and a high ISO lets in more.

Not quite. The f-number is the focal length divided by the "effective" aperture diameter of the lens. There are fixed f-number lens which are generally more expensive than variable f-number lenses. Unless you spend quite a bit of money, most zoom lens will have variable f-numbers.

ISO relates to the speed [sensitivity] of the film. An ISO 400 film is twice as sensitive to light as an ISO 200 film. That means that you can use a higher ISO film in lower light situations and still get proper exposures. Since a DSLR doesn't use film, the ISO is a setting for the relative sensitivity of the light sensor. Whether or not the ISO setting on a DSLR relates directly to film sensitivity, I am not sure.

In order to shoot a properly exposed photo, there has to be a certain amount of light that is focused on the film. Shooting pictures with ambient lighting [with no flash] there are two ways to change the amount of light reaching the film - change the shutter speed or the F stop. If you adjust your lens to a lower F stop it opens the aperature and lets in more light - a change in one f stop doubles the amount of light. Shooting with a larger aperature [lower F stop] descreases the depth of field - so the subject will be in sharp focus and the background will be blurred. The F stop is a little confusing. Changing from F5.6 to F4.0 opens the lens by one F stop, which will double the amount of light reaching the film. Comparing two lenses, such as an 2.0F and a 2.8F, you would say the 2.0F is a "faster" lens since it is able to let in twice the amount of light with a fully opened aperature.

If you change the shutter speed you change the amount of light exposing the film. Increasing the shutter speed from 1/125 second to 1/60 second lets in double the amount of light. If you are shooting a moving object, the photo shot at the higher speed will be less blurred.

Choosing the proper combinations of shutter speed and F-stop is one of the many technical choices that a photographer can make with an SLR.

I hope that helps a little.

G26ster wrote:

Divided Attention wrote: Composition, lighting, etc are all important, but much more goes into making a picture with feeling. It all depends on what you want your result to be, the "story you are trying to tell". JMPHO

You make an excellent point. I have judged many state and national professional photo competitions. Often, I would be the odd man out in scoring. Fortunately, a judge may "challenge" the panels score. Often, a panel would score a print much lower than I did. My challenge was, "why? justify you scores." Most of the time the points deducted were due to technical flaws, composition, or the actual print quality. That's fine, but when asked if they "felt any emotion" from the print, or do they see the story here?" Often they did. So I would ask, "doesn't this trump the minor technical flaws?" Many times they would agree and we would re-vote and the print would score higher (sometimes it fell on deaf ears though). In any case, your dad was spot on.

I would think that this criteria would apply when judging any work of art - the "technical" elements are secondary to the impact of the work.

G26ster wrote:... until the basics are learned ... you'll always be a snapshot taker.

A good photographer will take better pictures with a disposable camera than most people can take with $3,000 worth of photo gear just as a good shooter with a military surplus 1911 will outshoot a lesser shooter with a $2000 custom Les Baer 1911.

The Nikon School offers day-long seminars on Digital SLR Photography. They are good for all photographers, not just for Nikon owners. They are strictly seminars and do not require bringing or owning a camera. They have classes scheduled early next year in Houston [Feb], Dallas [March] and Austin [April].

http://www.nikonusa.com/Learn-And-Explo ... raphy.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The only thing I want to add is if you get a Nikon, make sure that it is compatible with all standard Nikon lenses. Nikon makes a less expensive model [I don't remember the number] that is not compatible with other Nikon lenses. If you buy this model you will be limited to one particular mount and won't have the flexibility and choice of other lenses.