[keffus]

so many questions, i don`t know where to begin... i have a canon 350d with the standard ef-s 18-55 lense that came with it.. and have just started to take a interest in photography ..i`ve played about usin the autofocus side of the camera but not the manual . i have read i should have a uv filter on too protect my lense? what does a lense hood do?is it best to concentrate on a particular thing, like portrait, landscape, etc first.. is there any decent books too get me started..i really have no idea about iso, and the rest etc and dont really fancy makin my self look stupid in front of everyone askin too many silly questions... i do pick things up pretty quickly

[Dabhand16]

No such thing as a silly question

Photography can be quite a complex hobby for those who are looking to progress. Hopefully you will get some varied opinions here that you will be able to tweak to suit yourself.

My two pennoth is if you are starting from scratch is to initially concentrate on composition. Do a little research and you will find there are some guidelines like not having a horizon dead centre in the frame, keeping your subject off centre and the rule of thirds. Of course these 'rules' can be, and are broken, but to start with if you follow them you ought to find your pictures improve.

Use the auto or program modes at first, you can start to explore the way you can control certain aspects of your shots a bit further down the line when you reach the limits of auto and program modes.

[stupot]

Welcome keffus,

Good advice there from Graham, as for using a UV filter well the purists out there would say and quite rightly that putting any extra glass or filter in front of your lens is going to degrade image quality to some extent, in real terms though for the majority of amateurs learning about this craft you'd be hard pushed to notice a difference in picture quality. I use one on a few of my lenses purely to protect my investment, i recently went out early to take some sunrise shots, got set up near the car as it was still quite dark, had my camera on tripod ready and walked the short distance to where i was going to take shots from and then woooosh over i went! tripped over a small chain running along the beach. Luckily i managed to save camera from hitting anything but you can see it only takes a moment have a momentary lapse and damaged a lens. Don't buy cheap though on a UV filter get a good quality one.

As for what to concentrate on well just experiment, you soon find an area that suits you and you like, for me its landscapes which i seem to do OK at, producing the odd decent shot! but portraits i cant take one for love nor money.

Asking questions on here or even googling terms helps, there really isn't a silly question so ask away! Oh and the two bits of equipment i recommend you invest in at some point if you haven't already done so (you don't have to spend much) is a tripod and a cable release, will be handy for most types of photography!

Happy snapping.

[keffus]

thanx for the advice , i have invested in a tripod ...cable release, ? would the the infra red remote work the same....i was told too get a grey card? something to do with light meter i think or am i runnin before i can walk..

[Dave Canon]

It depends on your learning style but I would by a good general book on digital photograpy (say by Tom Ang) and work my way throught it expeimenting along the way.
Don't be afraid to try different shutter speeds or different apertures for the same scene so you can later look at the differences and learn for yourself.

I think you would learn a lot from using the manual settings both for exposure and focusing. I do use automatic settings on my camera some of the time but I have 35 years experience so know when I can use automatic and when I need to use manual. You need to build up experience to make these decisions. Of course, meanwhile, if you have some important shots to take and are unsure, then stick to automatic.