Warning: incoming newb!

[doogie]

I have just been out and availed myself of a shiny new 450d with the kit lens, a 70-300 lens, a couple of 2gig cards and a bag to stash it in.

I know very little about this lark, but I know that I know not a lot - everything I've ever done has been on crappy wee compacts, and I'm not particularly artistic to start with. I know (or assume) that I want to shoot in RAW, but my first tests in fully auto mode would only save as JPG, but I assume that's because everything was locked down in fully auto.... must.... read..... manual.....!

I will hopefully have something for the challenge threads in the next few days

[0x21]

Do everything in manual, you'll learn faster that way (might be abit of nuisance at first, but its still worth doing, the computer can only guess at what you're trying to do).

And if you shoot in RAW, you can ajust things a lot better in photoshop; compensating for exposure and white balance and stuff. I'd imagine the 450d can shoot in RAW and JPEG simulatenously, and since memory is virtually free, I'd recommend doing that.

[djtoast]

There are a few advantages to shooting in RAW but it's a comparatively small consideration next to all the other things that make an interesting photo.

The most important (technical) things to think about are maybe things like the differences that you get from different focal lengths - ie if you stand near something and take a photo of it with a wide angle lens it looks very different to of you stand far away and use a telephoto lens, even if the thing fills the frame in much the same way... and the difference that depth of field makes: you can correctly expose things various ways but the way you let a quanitity of light through the lens affects exactly hom much will be in focus...

So those are the sorts of things I'd play about with before worrying too much about whether you're shooting JPEG or RAW files...

Have fun and post lots of pics here

[Shannow]

Don't start off in raw, as you don't want to get in to bad habits liek thinking 'oh i'll just fix it later'. Jpeg gives you a bit less scope for playing around with, so you'll learn better to get your expoures right, plus as you're a beginner, it'll leave you a helluva lot more room for pictures on your cards.

avoiud auto mode, and play with aperture/sutter pririty till you're comfotable knowing ow they work, then you can go onto manual with a bit more confodence, just keep an eye on the meter.

Also, raw files are fucking hug and take a beasting long time to process, even on a fairly beefy machine.

[doogie]

Coolies, thanks guys

I'll get it out of auto mode and leave raw just now unless I think there's something worth it, just stick with the 12MP jpeg.

[Mwezzi]

It helps if you try and imagine you're shooting on film. You start to put a lot more thought into light, composition and other basic techniques if you aren't in the mindset of 'well, I can just take a whole tonne and fix the decent ones later'. I'd say the most fun on a basic level is to be had arsing about with different depths of field (as determined by f values), a photo that looks cluttered when all is sharply focused can be completely transformed when you pick just one part as a focal point. In other words, what Toast said.