10 Pros Say What They Wish They’d Known about Photography

As I was reading the recent dPS article – 21 Readers Tell What they Wish They’d Known about Photography, it dawned on me that a handful of pros have already talked to us regarding what they wish they’d known. Here is a compilation of their answers.

Q. Is there anything you wish you knew when you started photographing?

A.

Sriram Guruswamy (Style – Potrait)

I never had the luxury of a mentor or of a formal training. My Photography style is totally self-taught and it took years to get evolved. I realized late that photography is not just about capturing something that is already beautiful.
There is a bigger dimension to it as being an honest perspective into those real moments of truth depicted in an aesthetic way.

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One stop newbie guide for buying a DSLR

Update : Only after publishing this post did it hit me. Its been a year since I own a DSLR. It has been quite an eventful journey so far. (status) Thank you folks for being so wonderful and supportive.

Recently a friend of mine asked me to help his friend buy a DSLR. To be frank, it left me scratching my head as I was at a loss as to what to tell him. Then I realized that the posts that have been published in antzFxWay are indeed a great place to start, if read in the right order. Once I sent him the mail, I figured it could help more people. So here is the post from where you can start your research.

	A Beginners Guide to Buying a DSLR (from a Beginner) I wanted to make a transition from P&S to DSLR. So I asked Google, my all-knowing ever-faithful friend, “What should I do?”. The keeper-of-all-knowledge promptly dumped thousands of camera reviews in front of me to choose from. “Oh my!” - I pinched myself.
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Half A dozen Stupid things people will do after buying their first DSLR

It is astonishing to see that newbies buying their first DSLR (including me), even after spending so much time on their research, have hit on a sequence of spending behaviours that is not exactly helping them in the long run. Here is a rundown of half a dozen of such things they we regret on later.

1. Extra battery

The battery pack that comes with the camera is an excellent unit that lasts for a reasonable amount of shots. I have used my fully charged battery on Nikon D90 for approximately 600 shots on a span of a week. Although it would make sense to buy extra battery if you are into professional business, as a newbie you will seldom find yourself actually needing any unless you trek for weeks on end in the jungles.

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A dozen sites for Photography Inspiration – Part 1

1. Cambridge In Color

This site should have been named “Photography for dummies”. The tutorials are structured in such a way that even the toughest technology is a breeze to understand.

2. Digital Photography School

DPS ( as it is affectionately called ) is a great site for learning digital photography tips. Whats nice about them is that they have got pros writing articles which are excellent guides for a newbie.

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A Handful of Useful WordPress Plugins

Earlier we shared with you the plugins that we use in your blogs. Today, we are updating that list with another six of them.

1. Popularity Contest

Popularity Contest keeps a count of your post, category and archive views, comments, trackbacks, etc. and uses them to determine which of your posts are most popular. There are numerical values assigned to each type of view and feedback; these are used to create a ‘popularity score’ for each post. Very useful when you want to offer your visitors the best of your posts.

Download

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A Handful of Must Use GMail Features

GMail is my favorite mail client (online and offline) because of its clean, sleek, fast interface. Over the time, I have started to enjoy some of its little-appreciated features. This post tries to give proper credit to the oft-overlooked goodies that are buried among the many touted.

Keyboard Shortcuts

This feature allows to easily navigate through the web interface. By default, Keyboard Shortcuts are disabled in a GMail account. You can enable it from Settings -> General -> Keyboard Shortcuts on . Once the setting is saved, you can press “?” to see all the listed key accelerators.

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Photography – Reliable DSLR/Lens/Flash Review Sites

Trust is a little hard to come by – especially in online sector. I spent the last two weeks in search for a “good’ DSLR. With a little (read: a lot of) help from one of our guest authors, I finally managed to buy one. During that search, I chanced upon a couple of sites that are trustworthy. This post is meant to recognise their hard work and dedication.

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In Search Of the Best Google Chrome Plugins

The best always stands out in the crowd.

But sometimes the crowd is so huge that we need someone else to point them out. This post tries to accomplish just that. With tons of Google Chrome plugins available for our use, choosing the “few” useful ones could be time-consuming. Presented below are a dozen plugins that I found useful (with a little help from some of my friends).

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Design — Online Survey

How good is good?
“Necessity is the mother of Invention” — although Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes) may not share the enthusiasm. We wanted to conduct a survey about online advertisements and we were looking for a ‘good’ tool. The word ‘good’ was difficult to achieve. Google search produced a ton of online survey websites, but they didn’t cater to our specific requirements. Even after an hour of googling we didn’t manage to hit the right keywords.

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Half A dozen Stupid things people will do after buying their first DSLR

It is astonishing to see that newbies buying their first DSLR (including me) have hit on a sequence of spending behaviours that is not exactly helping them. Here is a rundown of half a dozen of such things they spend their money on.

1. Extra battery

The battery pack that comes with the camera is an excellent unit that lasts for a reasonable amount of shots. I have used my fully charged battery on Nikon D90 for approximately 600shots on a span of a week. Although it would make sense to buy extra battery if you are into professional business, as a newbie you will seldom find yourself actually needing any extras.

2. Extra card

A 2GB card can hold approximately 250 RAW pics. (based on Nikon D90) That would generally be sufficient for a day’s casual shoot. Rather than buy extra card, buy a card with higher capacity like 8GB or so such that you don’t have to juggle cards regularly.

3. Filter

Although there are no scientific proof as to the effectiveness of using a lens filter as a protective shield in front your lens, common sense decrees that it would do more harm if not of a higher quality glass. Because you run the risk of scratching the lens from the filter’s broken pieces.
I have been using my 18-250mm for the last 6 months without a filter and everything is okay till now.

4. Cheap tripod

There is an article bythom which aptly describes how people will be spending their money on tripods. And I think it is quite true. I invested in a cheap tripod thinking I will upgrade once I know the quirks of using it. But every time I use it to capture a delicate moment, I end up cursing it because of its poor build. Invest in a good support system because you will never know when once-a-life-time opportunity presents itself and your tripod mucks it up.

5. Extra lens

Although Kit lens that comes with the body is good piece of glass, it is almost impossible to hold back and not buy more lens than you need. For a newbie, I believe it will take some time to identify his style and interest. So it is better to hold on until there is more clarity. I own a zoon lens (Tamron 18-250mm) and I am contemplating the buy of a 50mm because I am very much interested in profiling.

6. After spending a fortune on gear, we safely leave the camera at home!

Everyone does this! Your DLSR is not a delicate instrument that is to be left safely at home, but rather accompany you everywhere. Because you never know when you need. I have already regretted leaving my camera at home because that would be the time I will be presented with something quite extra-ordinary.