[Photo-SIG] New to the list

[Dave Lundy]

englebt at woh.rr.com wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> I kept hearing mention at the Linux SIG meetings about the fine people 
> in the digital photography sig, but before today I didn't have a 
> digital camera worth mentioning. I've had a couple of the regular 
> point-and-shoot cameras in the past, and got along ok with them. I've 
> got a child on the way and figured if I wanted some quality pictures, 
> I'd probably have to upgrade from the cheezy digital-zoom only cameras 
> to something with a little more power. On the recommendation of a 
> couple of photographer friends, I picked up a Canon Digital 
> Rebel/300D. However, once I started reading through manual and dinking 
> around with it, I realized I have no idea how to use it.
> 
> At that point, I remembered the friendly neighborhood Photo SIG I'd 
> heard such good things about, and figured it would probably be in my 
> best interest to at least join the mailing list. Any chance there's 
> someone here that wouldn't mind giving a quick crash course in 
> photography for someone that knows plenty about computers but next to 
> nothing about cameras? I've got so much new vocabulary I'm trying to 
> pick up, I don't want to get so caught up in trying to figure out 
> shutter speeds and focusing technologies that I don't even get a 
> chance to take a good picture. 
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> --Brian


Welcome aboard, Brian.  I just got a D-SLR (Nikon D80) myself a little
over a month ago.  At least one of our members has a Canon Digital
Rebel, but I'm not sure if it's that particular model.  Still, I
suspect most of the controls are pretty similar between models.  Since
I've been using digital cameras since the summer of 2001, I had
expected that the move to a D-SLR would be pretty easy, but I've found
that it's considerably more complex than I had imagined.  There is a
"Magic Lantern" series of books for specific digital cameras that have
generally gotten pretty good reviews.  You might visit one of the
local book stores and browse it a bit to see if you think it would
help you.  The SRP is about $20 and Amazon sells it for $15.  See
<www.amazon.com/Magic-Lantern-Guides-Digital-Photography/dp/1579905897>

By the way, our next meeting is Thursday, April 26.  I won't be able
to attend this month's meeting, but I'd be happy to offer my
assistance in a couple weeks.  In the mean time, I would suggest
visiting the forums at Steve's DigiCams, in particular the Canon D-SLR
forum <www.stevesforums.com/forums/view_forum.php?id=37> and the
Newbie Help forum <www.stevesforums.com/forums/view_forum.php?id=9>.
Membership in Steve's forums is free and I've found lots of friendly
helpful folks in the forums I've frequented.
-- 
Dave Lundy <www.dma.org/~lundyd> <www.flickr.com/photos/lundyd>