Roadking

Bought Miss RK a Canon EOS from a mate. Nice camera, now want her to learn how to use it. Anyone have suggestions on the best way for a 13 year old to learn?

Amnesia180

Which EOS is it? I'm still on the Canon EOS 20D, but it does the job. I'm assuming she's got the 18-55mm KIT lens right now? If so, that's fine. The best way she can learn, is to experiment and practise.

There will be a load of different settings, P, M, Av, Tv etc. One controls just the shutter speed, the other just the aperture, and M is fully manual so you will need to adjust both shutter and aperture.

I'm not very good at explaining things, but maybe that's because I just "do it". And that, in my opinion, is the best way to learn. She'll soon see that changing the speed of the shutter makes things more or less 'blurry' (obviously the focus is used in that too). And that the adjustmnet of the aperture will things (essentially) brighter or darker (under or over exposed).

A good book is the Magic Lantern Guide, absolutely loved my copy of it. A good website is www.photography-on-the.net (just Canon users). Another good, but UK based website, is www.talkphotography.co.uk.

Hope this helps

Roadking

Thanks Amnesia. It's the 350 I think. I know nothing about photography so anything helps. I'll give her those web sites. Need to see if I can get her a copy of the book too. There is a beginners course I'm trying to organise for her at Gulf Photo Plus, anyone know anything about it?

Meow

Roadking

DUCTAC runs various photography courses. They may do one at the weekend for younger people, but worth contacting them.

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Roadking

Will try them too. Thanks Meow!

Euc-

I just upgraded my Sony A700 to the A850 (and a 70/200 lens, Sigma though, the Sony G lens will come one day..)

Anyway, when I first started out I took up one course which was very helpful for the basics, and after that I spend hour after hour trying trying and trying.

Autonomy

why not the 900 - that's a beaut... get your self a Prime 50mm if you don't already have one...

practice is the obvious but simple answer... I took over 6,000 shots with a crappy camera in 1 year and it really teaches you how to compose the shot, try not to get bogged down in the technical aspects, learn these as you go, but think about the shot...

kittycat1

Hi Roadking,

I would sugest she plays about, has a look at other photographers work, try to see where the light sources are coming from, how close they are to the subject- if theres just one or several lights, I work with lots of different photographers and they all have their own technique and they are all still play about experimenting. And start simply its better to get the basics right first before over complicating things, the best photography is a simple subject with simpel lighting ( but done well) and shot beautifully. She needs to start looking at things in composition, what works and what doesn't.

If she is interested in fashion photography I run a a networking forum/blog for people within the fashion photography industry-www.cliclamode.com very friendly bunch and a mix of professionals and creatives starting out and I'm sure if she has any questions people would be happy to help out.

Trial and error is the best way though- and to remember for professionals they may take 100s of shots to get the perfect image and then use photoshop so not to be disheartened if she can't achieve what shes wants straight away.

I'm lining up a few fashion shoots here, if she wanted to come along and observe I'm sure she'd be welcome as long as the rest of the team doesn't mind.

Cat
xxx

Millhouse

Can I come too? ?!

Autonomy

can't emphasis enough about the light, keeping it simple and composing the shot...

for want of a better reason, here are a couple of reportage style shots taken 3 weeks ago at a friends wedding in the UK, the light quality compared with here floored me, amazing....

Euc-

Well, the reason I didn't buy the 900 is very simple, I could get a 850 for a very good price and I don't think that the very small difference between the two justifies the big difference in price.

Roadking

Thanks all, some great ideas and I'll pass them on the Miss RK. Cat, thanks also for the invite to the shoot, I'll pass that on to.

jrudofsky

I just went on the Gulf Photo Plus level 1 course at Knowledge Village. It was excellent and gave a very good grounding on basics and actually how to use a DSLR.

There was a 15ish year old girl on the course and she was fine with it. You learn in stages and then get to go and practice techniques before the teacher reviews some.

Roadking

It's all about composition...

Bob

the 350 is a bit of an oldie, but there's some nice firmware hacks to up some of the features.

check out www.deviantart.com as there are loads of great tutorials and people with great hints etc.