Camera Store - The Hell of Retail

Digital Camera Guides

BoignBoing has recently features a guide to photography. I would like to quickly mention why that guide is far less than ideal for the audience to whom Boing Boing recemmends it (owners of digital cameras who want to start stepping away from auto mode and trying to use their cameras' more advanced features).

At

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/12/photography_primer_t.html

Boing Boing praises this guide:

http://photonotes.org/articles/beginner-faq

As great as that guide is, I would say it's not so good for beginners. It's VERY long and goes IN DEPTH into all kinds of minor issues. And that's just in the Beginner FAQ! In other words, this guide has tons of great information, but it does a poor job to pointing a beginner to the information and tips from which he would benefit the most. It also does not display pictures to illustrate the complicated concepts it covers. Of course there ought to be webpages out there that explain the intricacies of the less-often-used modes in SLRs and other technical information. Getting an SLR, learning how to use it, and understanding the world of SLR lenses, film, sensors, flashes, and other accessories, can be overwhelming, and the page pointed at by BoingBoing does an excellent job of being thorough and informative about the more obscure points.

But if you just have a fixed-lens digital camera and are thinking about trying to slowly venture away from auto mode, then that guide is WAY overkill.

The guide at AirShowFan.com is a much better resource for beginners. It goes over the controls that are immediately useful, shows examples of pictures taken at different settings, and progresses slowly and linearly from the more basic concepts to the more complicated ones.

So if you have a fixed-lens digital camera and want to learn to use all it offers, then check out AirShowFan.com.

If you are thinking of buying an SLR but you know very little about the options you have or about what they mean - or if you have an SLR but don't know what all the buttons and menu options do, or what accessories to get - then the guide at Photonotes.org is for you.

posted by Remus