I have been taking baby steps, as my pittance of a budget allows, in upgrading my primary camera since I started using film-less cameras. the biggest thing I've had so far is my Nikon CoolPix P510 that I got three or four years ago.

All the photos I have posted here are from the Nikon p510 or the Cannon PowerShot.

I used to have nice Cannon AE1 SLR film camera a long time ago and had some successful pictures with that and went five years without any camera when I sold that. I knew I had to go digital but this is my first digital SLR.

I have the CD manual so I'll be working with that through the summer, and of course it is going to Dinosaur with me this coming week. I will be visiting with a good friend the day before I leave on the tour (the tour departs from the town they live in) and they have one of these and some other nice cameras so I think I'll be having a conversation and a quick, down-n-dirty primer before I get on the bus!! Now that I'm more awake and thinking more clearly after the shock.

I'm not familiar with Canon stuff, but I think the model you have was designed for more advanced use. This means that most or all of the automatic functions should be easily to override and control manually.

So the first step is to turn off all or as many of the automatic features that you can. Set the ISO, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, focus, and even flash into manual control and learn how to take pictures that way under many different conditions. Besides teaching and familiarizing you with the basic controls of the camera, you'll also learn how your camera does those things automatically and what the limitations of those things are. If you have trouble focusing the camera in low light, chances are your camera will have trouble doing it automatically. Once you are comfortable with full manual control, start utilizing the automatic controls one at a time.

Besides having the capability of changing lenses, the power of the SLR is being able to override the automation when it isn't working for you or isn't allowing the creative control you might want.

The best thing you can do is go manual mode. Learn how the settings work. It's slow going at first, with a lot and trial and error, but after a while it becomes almost second nature. Now, whenever I look at something I'm thinking in terms of shutter speed and aperture and ISO.

I have adopted that mode of thinking whenever I'm out picture hunting.

I do have a couple photographers who are willing to help me and I did read through the manual this morning and printed out a few pages so I have a little reference guide, the book wasn't available in paper form so I printed a few pages from the CD.

Thanks everyone!

They can get you up to speed quickly.

And there's good advice elsewhere in this thread..........

Have a blast!

I always remember the really big, good thing about digital: You can take as many pictures as you like and not worry about the cost of developing! So shoot away and have a great time!

Play with, say, white balance.... or whatever. Use variable settings with that for 1, 2, 4 (whatever) weeks. Then go on to something else.

The good news.... you have a "good eye." I don't know what that means but it seems I have a good eye, also. Most of the money I made selling photos was with photos taken with the iPhone 2. Simple camera with 5 mp and not much else going for it.

Fast forward a few years.... I have a Nikon D800. I got it to use with the 500mm lens for wildlife photography. But the landscape and other stuff I photograph, comes out just as good with the iPhone as with the D800.

The point of these rambling paragraphs is that if you have the "good eye," What is in front of that eye doesn't need to matter.

Have fun.

JC

It is well received and I will take all and put it to use. I have learned with all my other cameras that they have way more capabilities than I will likely use and I do work with one feature at a time otherwise it gets overwhelming.

One of the good things is that I have actually used this camera before and kind of recall some of the features but it was five years ago. The photos that I took with it then were stellar, I was documenting a wildfire in YNP from a boat on the lake. I was asked to share them with the Park, which I did.

This baby shoot RAW photos! I love that because that is best quality as far as I know. I just spoke to one of my siblings who is a professional photographer in California and does pretty well for themselves, told me to use RAW for anything I want to use for commercial purposes, which I have been considering for a while but hadn't such a camera.

Great advice and thank you all for sharing!! I promise to try and post some pics when I get back from my summer gig. I'll be in the wild much of the time until September so I'll say ta ta for now and get back with everyone a few weeks before the election, hopefully things will have calmed down a bit by then!! Carry on and be kind to each other no matter who you support!!

Love yas and thanks!!!

2na

I have the manual on a CD already. printed out some pages to take along on my trip so I can at least play with it this week.

Leaving in about 11 hours,almost too excited to sleep!