Hi everyone
Before I begin, I just need to highlight a pet annoyance of mine - when posting a load of questions in one post, rarely do they all get answered, so PLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEASE answer all of them, as I do have a few!!
Right, I'll gerronwivit....
I'm 32 years old and do have some knowledge on photography, though it is very limited and has since left my brain
- I studied photography at college about 13-14 years ago but never finished the course, but I did enjoy it and would now like to get involved again.
A few months ago I thought about taking it up again but didn't do anything about it until recently - I went abroad over christmas and the beautiful scenary motivated me and ended up spending a lot of time taking photos with a really crappy camera, mostly trying to capture artistic pics at different times of the day with the effects of the sunlight etc (sunsets, sunrise etc) and was quite happy with how some of the photos came out. Although I used a crap camera, I do have access to a DSLR but would obviously like one of my own, so first question - what would be the best for me? looking around I'd say one for £400ish would suffice? Obviously the cheaper the better, but I'm hardly a professional (YET!
) so your recommendations please? Also, can anyone offer any advice on lenses?
I'd obviously like to gain as much knowledge as possible, so have been looking at some books, but as there are so many out there, it's difficult knowing which I should buy - as I'm a beginner, I'd obviously like one that isn't going to get all technical on my photographic illiterate ass, so a book/s that is easy for someone like me to pick up without all the technical terms would be good. The books I've been looking at are:
1 )The Digital Photography Book: Scott Kelby (There's three of these in total, but I've heard the second and third aren't that good in comparison to the first?)
2) Night and Low-Light Photography: Lee Frost
3 ) The Digital Photography Handbook: Dough Harman
4) Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature - Matt Kloskowski
5) Photoshop Lab Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace - Dan Margulis
6) Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera
So is anyone familiar with any of these? Can anyone recommend any other books?
I've listed a couple of books on photoshop too, which brings me on to me next question - when I was taking photos recently, I was happy with a lot of the pics but was equally disappointed with a lot of them - keeping the camera in line with the horizon proved to be a bit of a disaster! I realise that I should be able to correct this in photoshop, but would obviously prefer to take photos as near to perfect as possible without any help from photoshop, so can anyone offer any advice here? (tripod and spirit level maybe? )
Just one more thing - my old man said I have an eye for a picture, but this doesn't make any sense to me - are people born with a knack of capturing a good pic? Is it a skill that you're born with? I would have thought anyone would be able to do do this, so what my old man said doesn't make much sense to me
I think that's all for now! So hopefully someone will be able to give me some help!
Thanks for reading
Before I begin, I just need to highlight a pet annoyance of mine - when posting a load of questions in one post, rarely do they all get answered, so PLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEASE answer all of them, as I do have a few!!
Right, I'll gerronwivit....
I'm 32 years old and do have some knowledge on photography, though it is very limited and has since left my brain
- I studied photography at college about 13-14 years ago but never finished the course, but I did enjoy it and would now like to get involved again.A few months ago I thought about taking it up again but didn't do anything about it until recently - I went abroad over christmas and the beautiful scenary motivated me and ended up spending a lot of time taking photos with a really crappy camera, mostly trying to capture artistic pics at different times of the day with the effects of the sunlight etc (sunsets, sunrise etc) and was quite happy with how some of the photos came out. Although I used a crap camera, I do have access to a DSLR but would obviously like one of my own, so first question - what would be the best for me? looking around I'd say one for £400ish would suffice? Obviously the cheaper the better, but I'm hardly a professional (YET!
) so your recommendations please? Also, can anyone offer any advice on lenses? I'd obviously like to gain as much knowledge as possible, so have been looking at some books, but as there are so many out there, it's difficult knowing which I should buy - as I'm a beginner, I'd obviously like one that isn't going to get all technical on my photographic illiterate ass, so a book/s that is easy for someone like me to pick up without all the technical terms would be good. The books I've been looking at are:
1 )The Digital Photography Book: Scott Kelby (There's three of these in total, but I've heard the second and third aren't that good in comparison to the first?)
2) Night and Low-Light Photography: Lee Frost
3 ) The Digital Photography Handbook: Dough Harman
4) Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop's Most Powerful Feature - Matt Kloskowski
5) Photoshop Lab Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace - Dan Margulis
6) Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera
So is anyone familiar with any of these? Can anyone recommend any other books?
I've listed a couple of books on photoshop too, which brings me on to me next question - when I was taking photos recently, I was happy with a lot of the pics but was equally disappointed with a lot of them - keeping the camera in line with the horizon proved to be a bit of a disaster! I realise that I should be able to correct this in photoshop, but would obviously prefer to take photos as near to perfect as possible without any help from photoshop, so can anyone offer any advice here? (tripod and spirit level maybe?
)Just one more thing - my old man said I have an eye for a picture, but this doesn't make any sense to me - are people born with a knack of capturing a good pic? Is it a skill that you're born with? I would have thought anyone would be able to do do this, so what my old man said doesn't make much sense to me
I think that's all for now! So hopefully someone will be able to give me some help!
Thanks for reading
