Hello from the Garden of Ireland

[Ray of Light]

July 15, 2011 at 8:54 am

Hi Everyone,

I’m new to both this forum and to photography.

I’ve always been very keen but never felt I knew enough about it to spend alot of money on the equipment. Life is for living so I decided to take the plunge and buy a good camera and a few lenses. I bought a Canon EOS 60D. It came with two lenses – a EFS 18-55mm and a EFS 70-250mm. I bought these off an extremely helpful man called Richard in Rafferty’s Chemist in the Stillorgan Shopping Centre.

I purchased a Sigma lense yesterday – 150-500mm.

My main interest will be in photographing bird and wildlife. I’m also a keen fly fisherman and come in contact with some terrific photo moments.

What really made my mind up to splash out was that a few weeks ago we (family) were going through some old (10/15 years ago) family photos and I was very upset with the quality of them. I had always used an expensive compact camera but the quality is poor enough when you compare them to a photo using a good quality DSLR camera. The unfortunate thing is that you can’t turn the clock back and recreate the moment – I can’t do anything about the past but I sure can do something about my future family photos.

As I mentioned earlier I’m a beginner so my mind is like a sponge and I’m willing and eager to learn as much as I can in order to improve my skills. I got a 4 hour free course with the camera but that is not until the middle of October. In the meantime I would love to do start learning now so I would appreciate it if anybody have suggestions as to where to go or what to do. I live in Greystones, Co Wicklow and I work in Sandyford.

Regards,

Ray.

[shutterbug]

July 15, 2011 at 5:42 pm

Hi Ray, welcome to the site and your new found passion :)

The best advice I can give you is get out there and use the camera, dont be afraid to “play” with the settings, you cant do any
harm to the camera and re setting it to factory setting should be a matter of pressing a button, so dont be afraid of it, get used
to the feel of it and and familiarise yourself with all the buttons and dials, so that you know instinctively where they all are.

Carry the manual with you so that you can check up on things you dont know there and then, use auto white balance, and either
shutter priority or aperture priority or if you are not comfortable with that use auto for a week or so and check the setting when
you get a shot that you like the look of, you will soon learn what works in different conditions.

Post up loads of photos for critique, a great way of learning quickly, dont be shy.

[Mark]

August 12, 2011 at 8:23 pm

Welcome Ray O’Light.

I know what you mean when you look back at those out of focus photos, been there myself.
Practice, practice and more practice will help to no end. Post up your work here in the critique forums
and you’ll definitely get lots of helpful advice. I’ve been amazed by how members have progressed over the years here.

Also, the free course with your new camera is likely to be with Dave McKane of IOP who are also great sponsors here on PI.
I’ve met Dave and sat in on those workshops, he’s terrific, full of enthusiasm and a mind of information. If you did go and
do a course with him afterwards, you’ll get good value,

Anyhow, welcome to PI and photography :D