Advice for a new DSLR owner

[CFord]

I am going out to Brazos Bend tomorrow to try out my new camera and I was wondering if any of you had some advice for a person who just got their first DSLR. I have been shooting film for some time but finally made the change to digital. The camera is a Minolta 5D and appears to be much smarter than I am. I had no idea that there were so many options for taking a picture. I have been wading thru all of the threads here to try and glean insight but seem to be creating more confusion for myself. I am perfectly capable of learning the hard way but it is much easier to learn from others past experience what controls a beginner should use and what should they avoid tinkering with.

[boomerd35]

I'm certainly no expert, and I have no idea about your particular camera. But the great thing about digital is that you can shoot away (until you run out of card space). For beginners, it depends if you are familiar with the elements of photograpy such as apperture, shutter speed, ISO, and how they all work together. If you're not, it's probably better to use the automatic mode until you do. If you are, I would say take a few in automatic mode, and look at the settings the camera decided. Then try some of the other modes and see how changes in the settings affect the picture. If you're going to Brazos Bend, I assume you are looking to photograph animals or landscape. Again, I'm no expert, but for landscape I'd say try Apperture priority to get the depth of field you like. Most likely, you'll want a small aperture (f8 or higher) to get deeper depth of field. If you post more detail on what you are looking to do and what your experience is, you'll get some good response here.

Troy T.

[Tim T]

Congrat's on the new camera and welcome to the forum. These high tech cameras can be intimidating at first but you will learn how to use it over time. The more you shoot the more you will learn. I would take the manual with you if it is small enough to put into your bag for reference if you need it. I don't know your camera so I will give you some general advice. Early in the morning at Brazos Bend when the light is low you may need to use a high ISO (around 800 or higher) to keep the shutter speed up enough to get decent pictures of anything that moves. I almost always have my camera set to aperature mode and adjust the ISO to get shutter speeds above 300 to 400 if possible for bird shots. Typically the higher the shutter speed the better for moving critters. Once the sun gets higher in the sky you can back off of the ISO. I tend to keep it around ISO 400 for wildlife. Also, I would recommend center point focus if your camera has it so that you can make sure that your focus point is on what you want. It looks like the weather won't be on your side tomorrow so make sure that you have something waterproof to put your camera into in case you get stuck out in the rain. Good luck. If the weather holds in the morning I may see you there.

[CFord]

Thanks to both of you. I used to have a pretty good understanding of how the photgraphic basics (Exposure, Depth of Field, etc) when I was shooting a Maxxum 70. It is just that I was constrained to whatever film I had in the camera at the time so I was limtied to shutter and aperture. Now they throw things like color control and something called White Balance into the mix. I would like to start off getting results similar to what I used get. Should I leave these controls at the factory default or is there a general best choice. The other main point of confusion for me is what format to store the images in and what offers the best value for space and quality.
Tim thanks for pointing out the fact that I can change the ISO easily, I will have to keep telling myself that. I will probably be around 40 Acre Lake first thing unless it is raining. I don't mind a small amount of moisture but tend to avoid torrents I assume from your signature that I would be able to spot you by looking for the big white lenses with red lines? JK

[engstrom]

Chris, I would leave the white balance set to auto (the default). I shoot exclusively RAW because I like the extra options it affords me but when I started with my DSLR I shot JPEG. JPEG is small, fast, and doesn't require as much additional post processing.

Since you have a good understanding of exposure I would work on changing the in-camera setting (things like saturation, sharpness, contrast) to figure those out. Take shots with a certain set of parameters (and record what those parameters are for future reference) then change them and take some more shots. When you're back home at your computer you can compare the shots and see what effect the parameters have.

Also, play with the anti-shake. Turn it on and off and see what the effects are. See what the maximum shutter speed you can handhold at is with and without the anti-shake so you'll know about how many stops extra you get out of this. This info is useful if you're somewhere with a low shutter speed and you need to decide whether anti-shake will take care of it or you need to bump the ISO up.

Get used to changing the drive mode, the program mode, the ISO, the metering mode, etc. A new camera takes a while to get used to the controls. There are times when you won't have time to think about how to change to high speed continuous shooting mode so you'll need to get used to changing all the controls as second nature.

Finally, have fun! A new camera is a wonderful learning experience.

[Tim T]

I am still a rookie at this so I don't change the white balance or color control in the camera but do it in Photoshop. I would recommend taking pictures in "raw" format if your camera can do it. This gives you the most flexibility in photoshop for adjusting the exposure and white balance. Yes you can look for me with the white lens along with a monopod. I am getting too old to hand hold this thing all day anymore. If I go I will be there at 7:00 a.m. when the gates open. I will send you a PM in the morning if I am going.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Looked at DP Review on your camera http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/spec...minolta_5d.asp Even though they don't have a indepth review on the camera they do show some information on it.

In reguards to white balance you can either leave the camera on auto or set it on one of the daylight settings, they may have a cloudy/overcast setting. WB really comes into effect when shooting under artificial light, don't know if you remember the old tungsten film that you could load into the camera. If you have a gray/white card you could shoot a card at the begginning of your shoot to get a good white point in the scene to click on using a white balance tool in RAW, or even a clean sheet of notebook paper in a pinch can work. You can put it in a corner of a shot where it isn't being shaded and you can crop it out later.

Since you have done film the digital camera isn't much different, one advantage is being able to instantly preview your shot for exposure levels, no film advance cranking, able to shoot 50 or more shots without having to change out flash card, and a few others. Disadvantage is a dead battery turns it into a great paperweight. (some of the old school film camaras would still shoot manually with a dead battery at higher shutter speeds). So for the first few times out I wouldn't use the review screen unless you have backup power so you don't end up running out of battery power.

Major debate on longterm storage of digital images, actually safest is some offsite service as long as they don't go under.
Most Expensive is just filling up a flash card and storing the card! Saw a comparrison a while back that shows DVD storage of photos cheaper than CD storage per image but both have unknown but limited life spans vs old B+W negatives which have surpassed 100 years now since some wetplates are still usable that were shot during the civil war and B+W negatives are not much different.

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal talking about the shift to digital from film and how the storage issue may mean billions of pictures taken now won't exist at the end of the century. But one advantage to digital storage say on a computer system is the cataloging and cross indexing that can be done in a snap compared to doing that with film/slide negatives.

I say just go out and have fun! At least you won't be spending $100 to develop and process a hundred or so pictures!

[CFord]

Thanks to all of you for the good advice. I tried to follow it as best I could and I think my photos are definitely better than they would have been without it. Thanks especially to Tim for allowing to walk with and gain from some personal knowledge. I am just glad that I did not get the advice about wading around in the water until after the alligator incident was over. I wil post some of the pics for critique in the Nature Forum.