Background thread: where is everybody coming from in their photography?

Photography and I have had an off-again-on-again thing for nearly all of my life.

I bought my first film camera, a point and shoot cheap piece of junk, at a garage sale when I was 7 or 8, and shot on that thing for years, buying film with my allowance.

About 10 years ago, I bought my first digital camera--a Fujifilm Finepix S7000 with a very small XD card--when I landed a job working for a community newspaper as both writer and photographer.

With no training or guidance and the stupid-small card, I shot on that camera the way I'd learned to shoot on a film camera, which is to say extremely conservatively. I'd come back from a shoot with 30 or 40 pictures, tops, rationing disk space like I rationed film. And I always shot on preset modes, either full auto or macro mode, never learned how to shoot on manual.

I feel like I've always had a good innate sense of composition, but completely lacked the skills to capture what I "saw" in my head most of the time. (And that's better than the other way around -- technical skill can be taught much more easily than intuition.) Ended up with a whole lot of nearly-great but just slightly off photos, got frustrated, and put photography aside for a little while.

I picked it back up again a couple years later, armed with a bounce flash and a bigger card and tried to take aquarium photos. But even when I finally got a larger memory card, I had no good way to process my shots other than "open ever file in Photoshop, look at them individually, delete the ones I don't like), so I ended up with a hard drive full of backlogged photos (thousands of them!) and the more backlog I built up, the less interest I had. If I couldn't even get on top of my old, tiny shoots, I didn't have a lot of motivation to go create even more images.

During these years, I missed a lot of good shots, I'm sure, but got enough decent ones I knew I loved working for That Perfect Shot.

Since I got serious about keeping, breeding, and selling reptiles, I picked my camera back up again, wanting at least the ability to photograph animals for sale, and that sort of thing. I got very frustrated with my existing camera, because its macro mode was barely acceptable, and it did not support interchangeable lenses. I felt like I had "outgrown" what the Fuji had to offer me.

So this summer, I told everybody that the only thing I wanted for my 30th birthday was a new camera with interchangeable lenses, and I ended up with a Canon Rebel T3 with the kit lens, and also a macro lens.

I shot on it a couple of times, actually was frustrated with my results -- because it's got interchangeable lenses, the kit lens is actually a little less flexible than my Fuji was -- and none of my handful of shots were turning out like I wanted.

I was also getting grumpy with my still-existing backlog of images from years ago that I was trying to deal with in a computer migration. So I asked a friend that's a pro photographer how he deals with processing his images.

He introduced me to Lightroom, and my entire paradigm of photography changed overnight.

I was dubious that software would make that much of a difference, so I downloaded the 30 day free trial. 3 days into the trial had cut through about a third of my old backlog, and Lightroom let me process my most recent shoot, a "big" one for me at about 150 photos, in less than an hour. SOLD!

Then, suddenly, my previous old, bad shooting habits shook loose -- now that I had few space constraints and an easy way to handle huge numbers of images, I didn't have to be conservative any longer in how I was shooting. I COULD TAKE AS MANY PICTURES AS I WANTED!

I'm just now learning that I have the freedom to shoot, to take the same shot from 3 or 4 minutely different angles, with different settings, and I'll usually get one or two good, useable shots of any particular thing I'm trying to capture, more often than not. Overnight I went from shoots of 30-40, to 200-300, and my bigger shoots that had previously been about 150 shots turned into 800 or so.

It's suddenly a LOT more fun, realizing I have the tools I need to catch what I have in mind a decent portion of the time, and I've been shooting like crazy ever since.

Now my next goal? Learn how to actually USE the darn camera -- well, actually, to use ANY darn camera. I have never shot on anything but "point and shoot" settings. And I think I get better-than-average results for doing so.

But my goal now is to learn how to shoot on manual. I never picked up an understanding of aperture or f-stops or shutter speeds, etc. I want to learn those nuances so I have better tools to have a lot more fine control over my photos.

That's my story. What's yours?

If you arent a member on POTN, I'd suggest joining that forum. Lots and lots of good information to be had there.

My story isnt quite as good as yours. I'm the kind of person that constantly needs new hobbies, because I get bored way too easily. I've always thought that'd if I had a decent camera, I'd be capable of taking pretty good pictures. This past April, a friend of mine was selling his original Canon Digital Rebel for a good price, so I decided it was time for yet another hobby. Started out taking pictures of EVERYTHING and quickly learned that my pictures sucked! So I joined a photography forum, and did nothing but read and read and read.

I learned the controls of that camera rather quickly, and was shooting in Av and M exclusively. Once I "mastered" that camera, I decided I needed to upgrade to my current Canon 40D. Then the upgrade bug hit me again, and I now have quite a few lenses and speedlites.

I'm constantly learning new things whenever I go out and shoot. Which is probably why I havent become bored with it yet. I just wish the bank account loved photography as much as I do.

Originally Posted by Nickrows

If you arent a member on POTN, I'd suggest joining that forum. Lots and lots of good information to be had there.

My story isnt quite as good as yours. I'm the kind of person that constantly needs new hobbies, because I get bored way too easily. I've always thought that'd if I had a decent camera, I'd be capable of taking pretty good pictures. This past April, a friend of mine was selling his original Canon Digital Rebel for a good price, so I decided it was time for yet another hobby. Started out taking pictures of EVERYTHING and quickly learned that my pictures sucked! So I joined a photography forum, and did nothing but read and read and read.

I learned the controls of that camera rather quickly, and was shooting in Av and M exclusively. Once I "mastered" that camera, I decided I needed to upgrade to my current Canon 40D. Then the upgrade bug hit me again, and I now have quite a few lenses and speedlites.

I'm constantly learning new things whenever I go out and shoot. Which is probably why I havent become bored with it yet. I just wish the bank account loved photography as much as I do.

POTN? I'm not, clearly, as I don't know what the acronym is

And yeah, I wish my bank account liked photography as much as I do too. Next toy is going to be a zoom lens of some sort, but that's some time down the road at this point. Stupid lenses costing more than the camera -_-

Originally Posted by SirenSanJose

POTN? I'm not, clearly, as I don't know what the acronym is

And yeah, I wish my bank account liked photography as much as I do too. Next toy is going to be a zoom lens of some sort, but that's some time down the road at this point. Stupid lenses costing more than the camera -_-

Have you checked at amazon.com?

**If you join the other form, bring back some information!

Originally Posted by deborahbroadus

Have you checked at amazon.com?

**If you join the other form, bring back some information!

Oh, that's where my camera and lens came from. And yeah, I can get cheaper lenses, but I'd rather invest once in a good quality lens than buy a crappy one, be unhappy without it, then upgrade to the one I wanted first anyhow, that costs extra in the long run!

recently bought my first 'fancy' camera a couple months back (Pentax KR). Still reading up on how to use it. I'm used to point and shoot where the majority of the pic is in focus automatically lol I am such a noob.

I was referred to and bought from this site and they have some good info as well:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/

Sorry, POTN is photography-on-the.net. Also, the Canon 55-250 is a decent lens for the money.

I started snapping stuff when I was 12. I wanted to photograph what I loved, my horses. I was always out at a barn and with a camera. At 16 I became more serious and started setting up sessions for individuals interested in what I was doing. Then 3 years ago I entered school to get a much stronger education and am working towards my BFA in photography. I have learned more than I ever could have anticipated and enjoy more types of photography than I thought I would. However, my first interest of equine and animal photography is still my favorite.

Poor lenses always get the short end of the stick. Lenses are an investment of glass quality rather than a camera body which is technology - quickly upgraded and outdated. Don't forget your lenses they need love too

I had classes back in high school when we had to develop our film...have forgotten eveything I learned.

Getting better with using a Canon Rebel XTi. I have the telescoping lens separately, but not the wide-lens (which I really want). I've only been interested in snapping pictures of family and now snakes.

I got into photography when I started posting gecko pictures on the web. I started with a Sony cybershot and have upgraded several times and now shoot with a Nikon D7000.

My next investment will be some sweet studio strobes.