New to Photography

[Sigur Rossco]

The good Lady got me a Panasonic Lumix FZ-45 for chrimbo.

Now the good weather is starting to come in I'm looking to actually get out and use the camera, I got Aperture last night but pretty useless with the camera and the software.

Can anyone recommend a good tutorial site?

 

[Macman45]

Aperture's help files are pretty good, but you might be better off starting with iPhoto which you should have installed already. Aperture is a powerful organisational tool, and yes it can edit too, but iPhoto may ease you into the world of digital photography a little better.

It also has step by step tutorial files for you to practice with.

 

[TheDrift-]

The good Lady got me a Panasonic Lumix FZ-45 for chrimbo.

Now the good weather is starting to come in I'm looking to actually get out and use the camera, I got Aperture last night but pretty useless with the camera and the software.

Can anyone recommend a good tutorial site?

I'd recommend maybe checking you local college for lessons (there pretty reasonable in the UK)

You'll learn far better,quicker, and sooner being taught by an experienced teaching photographer and going out and taking pics then any other way i know.. plus hopefully you'll have fun

 

[Sigur Rossco]

Thanks I'll start using that this evening if I get a few decent snaps when walking the dog.

The camera is saving .RAW and .JPG.

What's the best format to use? also I feel as though I'm not getting the best out of the camera when using the options at the top, should I look to going deeper into the full options available.

Be prepared for alot of daft questions like these over the coming months!

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I'd recommend maybe checking you local college for lessons (there pretty reasonable in the UK)

You'll learn far better,quicker, and sooner being taught by an experienced teaching photographer and going out and taking pics then any other way i know.. plus hopefully you'll have fun

Would love to do this but unfortunately i spend alot of time away from home for work. Trying to take advantage of seeing so many different places and testing my lack of skills.

 

[TheDrift-]

Thanks I'll start using that this evening if I get a few decent snaps when walking the dog.

The camera is saving .RAW and .JPG.

What's the best format to use? also I feel as though I'm not getting the best out of the camera when using the options at the top, should I look to going deeper into the full options available.

Be prepared for alot of daft questions like these over the coming months!

----------



Would love to do this but unfortunately i spend alot of time away from home for work. Trying to take advantage of seeing so many different places and testing my lack of skills.

lol ok no worries,

bryan patterson's book understanding exposure is a great beginners book.

Raw files have more information then Jpegs, but are larger. They are useful if you want to do your own post processing. Normally you have to convert to Jpeg for printing or to display on a web page.

Jpegs have some post processing already applied so look better straight out of camera, they are smaller and easy to share. They are a 'lossy' format, repeated saving of a jpeg (e.g. after adjustments) will start to degrade the quality of the image and result in blocks of colour in the image (called artifacting)

given what you have got I would probably shoot raw, even if you are not confident in post Aperture has an auto enhance option which is pretty good (watch in on people shots tho )

 

[Sigur Rossco]

Jpegs have some post processing already applied so look better straight out of camera, they are smaller and easy to share. They are a 'lossy' format, repeated saving of a jpeg (e.g. after adjustments) will start to degrade the quality of the image and result in blocks of colour in the image (called artifacting)

Would explain why my jpg's looks like a giant turd after playing about with it.

Can aperture convert to jpg?

 

[TheDrift-]

Would explain why my jpg's looks like a giant turd after playing about with it.

Can aperture convert to jpg?

yes right click on the pic (assuming you have set up right click on your mac), > export version > export preset

this will give you a load of preset options,

If you want to experiment you can even make your presets

 

[Sigur Rossco]

yes right click on the pic (assuming you have set up right click on your mac), > export version > export preset

this will give you a load of preset options,

If you want to experiment you can even make your presets

I only got my macbook last year and have barely even looked into doing much stuff with it apart from browsing and syncing phone and ipad.

Now I've got the camera I'm looking to get to understand the OS more and all the little tricks.