How long does it take to learn how to take decent photos?

[jmcoreymv]

Lets say I want to pickup a digital camera (maybe A80 or S45 for example). If I wanted to take it on a camping trip, how long would it take me to learn how to take good photos before I went do you think?

 

[Anubis]

that depends on YOU the user. do you have any background with photo? if not buy a book and start reading

 

[dopcombo]

I think ATOT is better at teaching you how to take indecent photos.

 

[jmcoreymv]

Originally posted by: Anubis
that depends on YOU the user. do you have any background with photo? if not buy a book and start reading

Hey hey hey...back the reading train up a bit. I read enough and I am pretty lazy. I just want to change some settings and take a picture. How long do you think it would take me to learn by taking pictures and screwing stuff up?

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: dopcombo
I think ATOT is better at teaching you how to take indecent photos.

LOL!

It took me a good few weeks minimum before I was comfortable.

It depends on you, how you learn, etc. It never hurts to pick up some research material.

Since photography is artwork, much like playing an instrument.. to yourself, you will always be striving to take "better" photos nomatter how good you are.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: jmcoreymv

Originally posted by: Anubis
that depends on YOU the user. do you have any background with photo? if not buy a book and start reading

Hey hey hey...back the reading train up a bit. I read enough and I am pretty lazy. I just want to change some settings and take a picture. How long do you think it would take me to learn by taking pictures and screwing stuff up?

best way to do that is take your camera and its manual. have like a whole day with it takeing pics and changeing the pictures. write down what you did, and what teh setting of the pic was like. light sun,... stuff like that

you will then see what works and what doesnt.

 

[squirrel dog]

Lets say you get a point and shoot film camera first . No lag time on the shutter speed,you can get film real cheap(along with the camera). And the resolution is very high compared to digital cameras .

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: squirrel dog
Lets say you get a point and shoot film camera first . No lag time on the shutter speed,you can get film real cheap(along with the camera). And the resolution is very high compared to digital cameras .

Currently there isn't any reason to learn photography on a film camera unless you want to learn film camera photography.

It is a total waste of time. It would take orders of magnitude more time to learn. You spend money on a roll of film. You take a roll of pictures.

You then pay to have it developed, and wait for them to be done. You go home and find out that only 5 of the 32 pictures are good.

It's been two days now, and you can't remember the settings you used.

Enter Digital Camera.

You go out, put it in manual mode and start shooting. You shoot until you fill your 256mb CF card up with 150 "good" pictures, deleting the obvious bad ones along the way. You go home to find 25 of the pictures good. You delete the 125 bad ones.

You then look at the EXIF data of the pictures, and note the settings you used.

During your learning experience, you saved time and money.

You also can't tell the difference between the pictures you're taking and film pictures, because todays 2 and 3MP digital cameras can print 4x6's just fine.

Think about it. Hold a normal size print up to a full size 1600x1200(2MP) pic. Now resize the digital pic to be roughly the same size as the film print.

Amazing, eh?