I’ve begun the long pilgrimage of trying to become a photographer. Dave, and John have both served as motivation over the years, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while. The only way to improve is to practice, learn, and then practice some more.
So that’s what I’ll be doing. Yesterday’s experiment was with the RAW function of my camera. It’s really cool stuff to be able apply different exposures, white balances, etc, AFTER having taken the picture. This is way more impressive than just loading up photoshop and adjusting levels if you ask me. Take, for example. the two shots on the right. The top is the original untouched photo, and the second one is the same raw with the white balance adjusted to flourescent (previously set to automatic). Makes it look tootally different. and required pretty much no effort or knowledge on my part. Simply try different settings when I import it and see what looks good. I should, of course, learn how this stuff actually works. I’d like to be more of a chemist than a metallurgist, but some amount of experimentation isn’t such a bad thing I think.
I’ve decided that I’ll stick with shooting raw+jpg for a while and see if I actually make use of it. Hey, storage is cheap these days, right?
I’m looking for advice from those of you who are further along this journey than me (which is pretty much anybody who’s even started). Here’s a couple of links I’ve been starting with for general reading material:
- The Canon EOS system - Frequently Asked Questions
- EOSrebels.com - Tips, reviews, tutorials, forums and more for the Canon Digital Rebel and EOS 20D
- Photo.net Digital Cameras - A Basic Beginner’s Guide to Digital Camera Technology
- Short Courses.com - Creative Contents
Links from a friend at the offce who’s into landscape photography: