During my first year participating on the DPChallenge website, I have learned quite a bit. I look at things differently now. I see things that I didn’t see before. I have participated in a lot of discussions on the site and in chat that have helped me create a formula for improving my photography.
I have learned, through my own mistakes and others, that there are certain requirements involved in making great photographs. Learning to make great photos is a ‘from the ground up’ process just like anything else. Learning the basics first seems to be important. Once the basics are mastered, you can use that knowledge to expand your photography to higher levels of image quality and subjective excellence.
Lesson 1: Know Your Equipment
You have a camera. Do you know what it is capable of doing? How much experimentation have you done with it?
Read your camera’s manual from cover to cover. You need to be familiar with every function your camera offers. You need to know what the camera is capable of so that you can determine when to use certain features and how they will benefit your photos.
As you read your manual, if you stumble across a function or feature that you do not understand, it’s time to do some experimentation. Play around with the feature or function until you fully understand its purpose and how it affects your photos.
You should be familiar with every feature your camera offers. You should also understand what the purpose of each feature is. If you come across a feature or function that you don’t understand, you should ask for help. There are plenty of people on the site that will answer your questions.
Your camera manual will not explain much to you about photography in general. It will usually only give you a very minimal amount of information about the features of the camera. You will need to play around with the features to gain an understanding of what they actually do.
After you've used your camera a while, you should go back and reread the manual. It's a little too much info in the beginning. Once you use the camera for a while, you know enough to understand what the manual is talking about. In the beginning, I couldn't even pick out the functions or features I didn't understand because it was all new :P
Good job John, a lot of people don't want to read but in this case it is a must. I carry my manual with me everywhere I take the E-10. The pages were so curled together from being jammed into the bag, that I had to iron it page by page awhile back just so I could get the pages apart.
The pages were so curled together from being jammed into the bag, that I had to iron it page by page awhile back just so I could get the pages apart.
Olympus has their manuals posted in PDF format...makes it possible to enlarge the type too...
I also suggest writing down the steps for the features you use frequently as well. When I first looked in the manual it was just a bunch of tiny type and icons/buttons. After extracting and noting the steps myself, I can now change to spot-metering mode almost without looking at the camera...note-taking is a proven learning reinforcement technique.
Part of my problem with my camera's manual is having no idea what they're talking about half the time ... and not in the sort of way that changes with use of the camera. I don't know what 'spot meter' is, or why I would want it or not. I don't know what 90% of the jargon in the manual is ... and most serious photography websites out there also assume an in-depth, chemicals-in-your-basement level of knowledge about the photographic jargon, I find.
Where can one go to find a plainspeaking 'this is what THIS does' kind of explanation of such things?
This is one place...Spot-metering is when the camera uses just a small spot (I guess in the center) to set the exposure. In most cameras' normal auto-exposure mode, it takes samples from several spots in the frame and sets the exposure to some sort of average value.
Part of my problem with my camera's manual is having no idea what they're talking about half the time ... and not in the sort of way that changes with use of the camera. I don't know what 'spot meter' is, or why I would want it or not. I don't know what 90% of the jargon in the manual is ... and most serious photography websites out there also assume an in-depth, chemicals-in-your-basement level of knowledge about the photographic jargon, I find.
Where can one go to find a plainspeaking 'this is what THIS does' kind of explanation of such things?
This site has an excellent glossary, which should help.
DPReview
I appreciate all the work and time jmsetzler puts into this site, he is a true photographer who cares about the art of photography and building upon it.
I recently got into photography, and over the last 5 months I've really improved. When I first got my DSC F717 I read the entire manual, and still go back and read it alot. I always have questions and wonders about certain features. When I read a good tutorial here, I always refer back to my manual and try the tip at home, and that usually works.
Good advice John. I think it's about time I read the owner's manual. Thanks for sharing your ideas.
So you mean to tell us that you've been pumping out those ribbon winners without reading the freakin' manual. Showoff!!! ;) lol Just kidding of course.
Hello KarenB
Thanks for posting all the lesson links. I am a new subscriber and still exploring all the hard won knowledge available here. When I subscribed to this site my only motivation was to take better photos. I have learned more in a couple of weeks than in the last two years that I've been using a digital camera.
