[arthurs]

Looking for a good "getting started" but not too basic guide or articles.  I'd like to create a cheat sheet for myself of at least baseline speed, aperture, and ISO settings in different environments to start making adjustments from.  I am experimenting as I go, but thought a cheat sheet (indoor good lighting, indoor dim light, outdoor dawn light, outdoor night, still versus moving, etc.)might help me until I get my tiny brain wrapped around it all, and the user guide is helpful, but not really written for a layman, or at least not overly so.......any help is appreciated....humbly....

[JohnR]

The only thing I can think of along these lines is the rule that shutter speed should be no lower than 1/focal length for hand-held...

Another thing that would be useful to understand is depth of field. It varies with focal length though... for closer subjects I personally am finding f4 to f5.6 to be the widest aperture I use with my 45 and 85 mm lenses, except for special effects.

For landscape shooting, it's useful to understand the concept of hyperfocal distance, here's a page that google turned up:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/hyperfocal-distance.htm

For deliberate motion blur, somewhere between 1/30 and 1/2 sec will do that although it depends on what you're shooting. This shot is at one second (as I recall)

Departure

What camera and lens do you have? (Just curious )

[jermmd]

The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby is a nice starter book. It's a quick, enjoyable read and you will understand the basics of photography by the time you finish. I highly recommend it.

[jermmd]

The book is written sort of in the format you describe. The author basically describes a type of photo he is taking (portrait, landscape, close up) and then gives his SLR settings for the photo with an explanation of why he chose those settings.

[arthurs]

Thanks guys.  John - I got the Canon Rebel XTi 10.1MP.  Just using the lens that came with it for now 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6  Figure I'll move up to a better all purpose lens once I have my legs under me using it.

[drphoto]

arthurs. the zoom that comes w/ the Rebel is suprisingly good for for the money. When I played around w/ the one my friend owns, I was pretty amazed at the sharpness and lack of significant optical distortion/defects.

I would suggest that in addition to 'how to books' you look at photobooks by really good photographers. A lot of shooters w/ good equipment simply end up w/ nice snapshots, not real photographs. Look at a variety of styles and you may come across ideas you never considered.

The first time I saw Matt Mahurin's work, it had a profound impact on me. Now a lot of people would hate his stuff... dark, grainy, sometimes blurry but I thought the emotion really came through....something that's very difficult to achieve in still images.

my 2 cents anyway

[TONEPUB]

If you would like some great basic photography stuff without digital, John Hedgecoe is one of the best authors I've read..

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Photography-John-Hedgecoe/dp/1843401193/ref=pd_bbs_sr_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198815970&sr=8-7

Also, if you would like more info on just basic photo techniques, check your used bookstore for the original time/life photo series. You can usually pick em up for about 3-5 bucks apiece and they are fantastic.