Many people got a dslr camera recently, which for many of them is their first SLR, and they want to learn how to do photography, so they ask me for advice. I started with analog photography and I have done development and printing myself, so that was a very useful experience. But since these people do not want to go through the analog process they have to learn it the digital way. What I recommend in the first place is to put everything on automatic and start making a lot of pictures under many different circumstances. Try to avoid using the flash however. In that way, you will see what your camera is capable off, where the automatic functions are doing their job well, and when the circumstances make the automatic exposure, autofocus and auto whitebalance fail. It also allows you to focus on two most important aspects of photography: timing, because you still have to press the button at the right moment and composition. Those who are used to compact cameras will have to get used to using the viewfinder instead of the display. So, in this mode, photography is a matter of composing the image by the use of zoom, by looking in the viewfinder and then pressing the button. There is also the parameter of programme shift, where you can choose a faster time with a larger aperture and vice versa: see what happens if you do this, learn about motion blur, sharp depth. Also try the exposure compensation buttons: how does your image look if you under or over expose it. And check the images on your computer, the display is not a good place to check your pictures. See if your camera, in auto mode, does proper exposure and focus and if not, in which circumstances not.


After that, I recommend to switch off automatic functions one by one, and see how it affects things and what parameters you now have to control yourself. Switch off autofocus and focus manually, although this may be a bit of a hassle in modern dslr's. The next mode I would choose is A mode, for apperture in which you choose the apperture and the camera will choose the matching shutterspeed. This is actually the mode I use most of the time, both analog and digital. This has to do with the fact that I like taking pictures with maximum apperture and thus smallest sharpdepth, and I like taking pictures in low light conditions without flash. Use this, in combination with manual focus to see how apperture affects sharpdepth, which parts are in focus, and what range. Also, if you have different lenses or a zoom lens, see how sharpdepth is different among those lenses or among the different zoomlevels.

The next thing would be S for shutter mode. You choose shutterspeed and the camera chooses apperture. Check out how the picture is affected by shutterspeed, how you get motion blur or when you can freeze an action. Also see how this differs among different lenses or zoom settings.

Next: M for manual. Here you will have to do everything yourself, you set apperture and speed, you focus and then you take the picture. This is how it was done in the early days. See how this feels, learn how to use the light meter.

When you use these modes, you can of course choose if you want to use autofocus or not. But especially when using the A mode and you are trying to see how sharpdepth works, (use your DOF button if you have it!) I would recommend to use manual focus.

After this there are many other things you can experiment with, like iso settings: the more sensitive the iso mode, the more noise. White balance, different settings, how do they affect your colour represntation? Flash. This is a very difficult part of photography, which I try to avoid wherever possible. Bracketing.


New DSLR's have loads and loads of buttons, but I would say, limit yourself to the essentials.

The shutter button, the mode button which switches between P, A, M and S, the switch which turns on or off autofocus, the button for iso mode and th button for checking the pic on the display. Forget the rest for now.

Tags: photography,digital photography