I Started shooting with a DSLR. Tips?

Posted on December 7, 2008 by Josh Kenzer

Using Tv mode to blur the background

I’ve taken tens of thousands of photos over the years with point and shoots. I’ve become a snapshotographer. However, I’ve never taken the time to learn the ins and outs of photography. It’s very difficult when you’re shooting with a camera that only has full auto mode.

A while back, the CVB purchased a Canon Rebel XSi so we could take photos internaly and save money on outsourcing photo shoots. I finaly got a round to taking the camera home and learning how to use it. Being as naive as I am, I set it on Manual mode and started taking pictures. Each yielded the same result, a photo so washed out in light that it looked like an undeveloped Polaroid picture.

So, after reading the manual, I learned a bit more about how to use Manual mode as well as Tv and Av mode. I submit for you my first Flickr set of DSLR shots all taken in one of those three manual modes. For the Christmas lights, I used the window seal of the car as the “tripod.”

Anyone have any tips or sites they particularly like to help fine tune DSLR techniques? I’ve been really starting to hone in on good photos on Flickr to see what techniques these photographers are using. Any where else I should look?

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  • I don't have a good DSLR site, however, once you get into working with your flash (and especially off camera flash) there is no better site than strobist.com. These guys ROCK and everything is free on the site. You'll learn more than a lot of the Pros know about how to do lighting with flashes.

    Hope you enjoy it.
  • Yeah, I've gotten some good lighting tips from that site.
  • I almost always shoot in Av mode. It gives you the aperture control, which I use to control depth of field (I think it's a finer control than Tv would offer). I have a couple of lenses that are f/1.8, which makes the blurry background real prevalent when you want it. You can bump the Aperture to around f/10 or f/11 to make the entire scene focused, but you sacrifice a lot of speed. When you get that height, you'll also see all the dust that's on the lens, so carry something that will blow it off periodically.

    Just play around with it. Take some indoor photos at night with just the house lights on. You'll see how major the difference is in that light and outdoor. Screw with the ISO. Higher ISO makes it faster but adds junk to the shot. Knowing how much junk to expect makes you think about how willing you'll be to change that ISO from 100 (which I much much prefer) to 400, 800, or 1600.

    Finally, I shoot almost exclusively RAW. I love the control and have become pretty proficient in Photoshop CS3 using the RAW editor. If you don't shoot RAW, the biggest challenge will be the white balance. I find that the camera doesn't accurately balance to sunlight, shade, clouds, etc., which is one of the biggest reasons I use RAW. I like to adjust the white balance to my eye for the shot. It's another thing to play with, for sure.

    Good luck, and feel free to ask anything specific if you run into any issues. You know where to find me.
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