So Much to Learn

For my 50th birthday last October, Russ gave me a new digital SLR camera (A Nikon D3000) and for my Christmas gift gave me a new lens with a little more zoom capabilities. Since that time I've been determined to learn how to use the camera. I started out just keeping it in Auto Mode and then started playing with some of the other automatic settings but I knew there was so much more that it could do. In November we took a trip with some friends to San Antonio, Texas and my friend, Paula has a Canon camera similar to mine. We both wanted to practice with our cameras but as we started playing we realized how little we knew about them. We went to a museum that had a sign up that said "NO FLASH" and we didn't even know how to turn our flashes off. So I decided after that that it was time for me to start reading the manual. My daughter, Amber gave me a book for Christmas on my camera and I've been reading that as well as other photography books that I have here. I took two classes at Big Picture Scrapbooking (which were a little disappointing to me) in January. One was called "Get Out of Auto Mode" and the other was "Moving into Manual" mode. I learned a little from them but not as much as I had hoped. I've been watching every photography video I can find and reading books and it's gradually starting to click a little bit. I thought I'd post a few of my favorite photos I've taken so far. I'm still learning about light and shutter speeds and aperatures but it is starting to make a little more sense now. I am definitely enjoying the learning process though. I take a lot of pictures of a lot of random things but each time I end up with a few that I'm really happy with. My friend Paula and I went out on a Sunday afternoon and took a bunch of pictures of each other and of Stars Mill so we could try the various shutter speeds. We will have to do this more often so we can master these things. It is so nice to have the depth of field that you get with a digital SLR camera. I'm looking forward to taking it to Colorado this summer and taking pictures of my mountains and places we loved there. I'm sure I'll find plenty more uses for my new camera in the years to come. It will definitely make my scrapbook pages better when I can enhance them with better photos. I'm looking forward to adding in more lenses and equipment as I get more acquainted with the camera. It's one of my goals for this summer to get comfortable with the new camera enough to where I don't have to think about settings each time. They should just come naturally so I can be more spontaneous with my pictures. I'm hoping to find a photography group in town that I can link up with to learn from other photographers.