New to Photography

Hi I am kinda of new to photography , I just bought a Canon t7i with a efs 55-250mm and efs 18-55mm…got a great deal on it. i would like to learn how to use it to its full ability. Would anyone like to teach me on how to use it and how to take great pictures or are there any classes.

You should cross post here. At the Makers of Photos Facebook page Photography SIG members tend not to be too active on Talk. I would love to help, but I have an infant and a wife with a broken leg at home right now. I can’t even keep up with the household chores.

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If there’s a pdf file of the manual, print it out.
The small manual that has squinty fonts isn’t friendly to study.
Do a quick go through the manual to get an over all view of the camera’s capabilities.
Now consider what you want to shoot and go through the manual focusing on that.
Get a red pen and make notes and cross references in your printed out manual.
Start shooting, experiment, study the results.
Get up the learning curve before you start shooting things you want keep/archive.
It’s rather frustrating to be out in the field and decide you need to use a feature on the camera only to discover that it’s not compatible or available in the mode you usually shoot in.
Shoot in lossless raw. Gives the best results and options for when you edit.
Archive your raw files. You can convert to jpg later.
You’ll need an editor. Photoshop is the obvious biggie out there. Here’s some options:
https://www.on1.com
https://www.dxo.com
Some online references:
https://luminous-landscape.com


Checkout local camera clubs
http://www.dallascameraclub.org/

Happy shooting!

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I suspect there are some “Photography Basics” classes on YouTube.

The exercises are taking the same picture adjusting your shutter speed, increment by increment. Then do the same thing with ISA. Etc. My recommendation is to go out and shoot a moving subject, like cars or water or kids on a playground.

When you can look at 10 pictures of the same subject at different speeds it gets interesting to see the results.

The difference between a rank amateur and a decent amateur photographer is knowing when to push those settings in a situation. As well as which setting to push to get the desired photograph.

The joy of digital photography is the “film” is free and the results are immediate.

Spending some time studying your results will pay you dividends.

Having a notebook in invaluable to write down what settings were for a specific photograph. That makes that result reproduceable.

Finally. There are aspects of photography that are science. As well as, things like composition that are artistic. There is also a bit of patience needed to know when to take a picture. (Where was the subject looking? Did they blink? Can you get them to look at the camera? Or sports photography, taking the picture at the 3 yard line verses the 0 yard line has a completely different meaning.)

“I am taking pictures.” has a whole new meaning.

Last item. Think about digital storage and backup. Early on you can take lots of horrible pictures for many reasons. Learn from those as well.

Best of luck.

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I have a friend who took some of the photography “adult education” or “continuing education” classes at one of the community colleges. He said they have a whole sequence beginning with “I just bought a DSLR” and going through some more advanced lighting and shooting techniques. I think the classes are six weeks with some classroom and some shooting sessions, and homework. He has gone from asking me “how do you get the depth of field so shallow” to shooting some awesome stuff. His teenage kids are quite tired of being his models at this point. :smiley:

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There are lot of resources to read and videos to watch and learn if you search online. If this is your first camera, I would recommend going through the user manual once. In my experience user manual is the best resource for a camera. In general to learn photography I recommend a book “Understanding Exposure” by Bryan Peterson. You can get it cheaper online or at Half Price Books. If you would like to try a class room type of learning, certainly try the community colleges, it would be a great help. I recommend going out and taking pictures, that is the best way to learn once you master the user manual. I use Nikon, not familiar with Canon cameras but don’t mind meeting you at Makerspace and show you some basic things over the weekend.

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They used to meet every three weeks to a month but not recently.

We haven’t met since late Nov. Lack of massive interest + the holidays kinda shut us down for the moment

I can help with any questions you might have. I’m a film shooter so without playing around with the camera I can’t tell you exactly what buttons do what but the techniques and fundamentals are the same across the board. I don’t have a curriculum to teach a class but if you need one on one help I can do that.

To test your skills. I have a light up dance pole behind the door in the electronics lab you can practice taking photos of. It sounds funny but it’s actually very tricky to take good photos of fast blinking lights. Lets see what you got. I need some more IG photos.

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That’s pretty awesome, did you fabricate that? If so do you have plans on it? My finance does pole fitness and would love something like that

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Yes I build them by hand @ Makerspace. My plan is to sell them @starpoles

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Ah, very nice. Checked out your site, is that price the end goal or just because you haven’t worked out a process? E.g. more work = higher cost

Haven’t worked out manufacturing yet. I would sell them for $100 a piece to every household in America if I could.

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Thank you everyone, been reading the manual, now just gotta get out and take photos.

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@Nagyk If you want to build one together let me know. Im sure she would love it and it would be the talk of the town. Did you ever go take a look at it?

Naw, I haven’t been to DMS this week but I’ll definitely check it out, maybe this weekend. Ah yeah! I’d be down for trying to make one

This book is worth it’s weight in gold.

I have the 7th or 8th edition I think. You’re welcome to borrow it for a few weeks if you’d like. Also Half Price Books and other used books stores usually have older editions for like $20.

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You can usually find a $10-20 class on Udemy that would give you some solid fundamentals and good exercises to work on them with.