When first purchasing my DSLR camera I was mortified when I looked at the actual camera and saw all the different buttons, wheels and knobs.
I then saw that there were even more wheels on top of the camera and when I switched the actual camera on there were even more options to pick from, this can be quite scary however with the tips I'm about to give you will allow you to master your camera in no time at all.
The first tip I will give you is never ever use automatic mode.
The reason why I say this is because you have just purchased a DSLR camera, you don't want to use it like a small point and shoot.
Take your time to learn your craft, learning photography won't come easy and it won't happen overnight.
You're also going to make a lot of mistakes along the way; however these mistakes are sure to help you.
To use your camera correctly you will have to understand how aperture works, how the shutter speed works, how ISO settings and white balance settings affect the overall image.
To do all of the above you can watch video tutorials on YouTube and even find free information online, I would however recommend you reading a few books even if you don't like reading because it will help you.
Some books I would recommend are: Understanding exposure by Bryan Peterson The digital photography work book by Scott Kelby Both above books are easy to follow and certainly helped me out a lot with understanding shutter speeds, ISO settings, aperture and much more.
Another tip I would recommend is always making sure your camera is charged.
I made this rookie mistake once when I was photographing the biggest band at the time I had shot.
The band came on stage and for some reason I looked at the battery remaining and to my horror I saw that I had 1 bar of battery left, fortunately the battery lasted and I was able to take and sell my pictures however it could have been a horror story for me that night.
Another tip is to make sure you have enough memory cards available to shoot what you want to.
I would recommend having a few small sized memory cards such as 4gb rather than having bigger 8gb memory cards, the reason for this is that if one card fails then you will lose less images than if your bigger memory card fails.
I then saw that there were even more wheels on top of the camera and when I switched the actual camera on there were even more options to pick from, this can be quite scary however with the tips I'm about to give you will allow you to master your camera in no time at all.
The first tip I will give you is never ever use automatic mode.
The reason why I say this is because you have just purchased a DSLR camera, you don't want to use it like a small point and shoot.
Take your time to learn your craft, learning photography won't come easy and it won't happen overnight.
You're also going to make a lot of mistakes along the way; however these mistakes are sure to help you.
To use your camera correctly you will have to understand how aperture works, how the shutter speed works, how ISO settings and white balance settings affect the overall image.
To do all of the above you can watch video tutorials on YouTube and even find free information online, I would however recommend you reading a few books even if you don't like reading because it will help you.
Some books I would recommend are: Understanding exposure by Bryan Peterson The digital photography work book by Scott Kelby Both above books are easy to follow and certainly helped me out a lot with understanding shutter speeds, ISO settings, aperture and much more.
Another tip I would recommend is always making sure your camera is charged.
I made this rookie mistake once when I was photographing the biggest band at the time I had shot.
The band came on stage and for some reason I looked at the battery remaining and to my horror I saw that I had 1 bar of battery left, fortunately the battery lasted and I was able to take and sell my pictures however it could have been a horror story for me that night.
Another tip is to make sure you have enough memory cards available to shoot what you want to.
I would recommend having a few small sized memory cards such as 4gb rather than having bigger 8gb memory cards, the reason for this is that if one card fails then you will lose less images than if your bigger memory card fails.