New to this lot

[JayDog]

Hey all

I'm pretty new to all this. been taking photos for a while on a panasonic lumix compact. The main subject of my pictures are climbing, landscapes and the more I read up on these things the more I want to take photos of everything else too.

so I've decided on the camera I'm gonna save up for and the lens that will come with it. I've used it before when I met a guy with this camara (canon EOS 550D) it felt pretty good to me so I thought I'd stick with it. What do you guys think? Is worth the money? Also is there anything else I should have on the shopping list?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-Digit...=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=560798&s=electronics

My main question is what computer set up do I go for? and what software for playing with the photos, but most importantly. how and where can I learn to use all the kit I'm about to get?

Thanks in advance for any input

JayDog

 

[Digifrog]

Concentrating on one subject matter to begin with (i.e landscapes) is probably the best way forward. By doing this you will clear your mind and not go haywire buying loads of stuff you might end up never needing.

My advice is to decide now what you want to do, what do you enjoy most?

If you opt for landscape, cityscape, seascape etc. then you might want to think about a tripod and some graduated neutral density filters for example. If you opt for people, studio work then you might want to think about flash units, umbrellas etc. the usual strobist gear.

As for a computer set up, well as long as you have 4+ gig of RAM and a heckload of free disk space nothing special will do. An external HD will be useful for mirroring your files in case of a crash.

Software wise, I'm not entirely sure you'll get DPP with the 550D (I think you do). This will help with basic RAW editing and conversions. For anything more Adobe Lightroom is an optimum choice but of course you could splash out on CS5 or try any of the free editing software that is available, though these generally are pretty limited to what they can do. When it comes to learning Youtube is a great resource but there are many many tutorials available online, don't waste your money on a course. Soon enough it will all fall into place and you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Look on Flickr etc. and find what inspires you. This will help you decide your main interest, then when you get good at it or have more money to spend then you can try something completely different. Good luck.

Scott

 

[Carter64]

Software wise, I'm not entirely sure you'll get DPP with the 550D (I think you do).
Scott

About the only thing I can add to a good reply is that you do get DPP with the 550D: I've just bought one last week

 

[woof woof]

Personally I can't stand DPP, I think it's a clunky pile of poo :thumbsdown: even though it is improved over the simply ghastly state it was in a few years ago It was simply a disgrace then IMVHO.

I use CS5 but it is rather expensive. Photoshop Eliments seems to do a good job and it's cheap but hobbled by having too many auto corrections giving the user no choice... :thumbsdown: doubtless to force people to spend more on Lightroom or CS5. I couldn't get on with Lightroom, to me it looked like half of the features of CS5 were missing or hidden and to me it looked more like a package to help you organise your photos rather than a serious processing package. Just my VHO.

There are free things that can be downloaded and used such as GIMP and Rawtherapee. I can't get away with Gimp myself but I do find Rawtherapee to be useable although it's noise reduction seems to be (cough) less than state of the art.

If the price of a full blown package like CS5 is too much a good and free compromise might be to use Rawtherapee or at a pinch DPP for RAW to JPEG and then get out of it as soon as possible and use GIMP or Rawtherapee or another free package for final JPEG processing.

PS. On the hardware side... Instead of a DSLR you could take a look at the Panasonic G range of Micro Four Thirds camaras. These are SLR like but smaller and lighter and give comparable image quality at lower to mid ISO's although DSLR's may race ahead a little at the highest ISO's. For someone hiking, climbing or doing other active things the more compact and lighter weight of micro four thirds might be attractive. I certainly notice the difference.

As for learning... Read the manuals, Google, and experiment. One of the great things with digital is that you can play with your kit and look at the results immediately without the cost of processing.