newbie in uk to this site & photography

[brenda]

HELLO everyone
my name is brenda i am 38 i live in london england uk.i found this site by accident but just love it,so many wonderfull photos from around the world.everyone here seems to be from some lovely places & has lovely locations to shoot.
i have always used a basic point & shoot 35mm then upgraded to digital olympus fe-120,just taking snap shots realy,but i realy would like to learn how to take decent photos i have just today bought the fuji finepix s5000 from ebay this looked like a good camera to get me started...& to be honest havnt a clue where to start,instuction manual is going over my head idealy i would like to take close ups of flowers/insects, night skys and portrait photos of my children. so if any one out there could give me any sort of advice,how to frame what sort of settings that sort of thing it realy realy would be much appreciated.i have basic knowledge of using photoimpact 10 , but basic.
i have put a couple of my attempts in the photo sharing pg embarrassing as they are,but everyone has to start somewhere.

thank you all in advance for your help & support
look forward to hearing from you

brenda

[northbeach]

Welcome, Brenda.

Photography is such a big subject...I'd suggest you get yourself a good book on digital photogrqphy basics that are in simple terms - and learn it bit by bit. Since you're in the uk I don't know what to recommend, but why not go to a good bookshop(there are plenty of those in London, as you know).

Keep on checking out photos submitted for the weekly contest and reading the comments on what do or don't like abouit them. Everyone is not, by the way, alway right

And just keep on taking lots of pictures.

Sheila

[brenda]

hello sheila
thank you for your reply ..i did today go out and buy a realy basic book "digital photography" 500 hints tips & techniques that has helped a bit today,ive now mastered how to slow up and quicken my shutter speed and tested this evening ..so ive got that im now just confused by the mode dial

SP/M/A/S/P/AUTO.....how on earth do you know which setting to switch it to for what type of picture i cant find all that in the instruction manual or the book i bought, so i just had it on P & 800 shutter speed got some nice evening shots & for 1st time didnt have to use a flash even though it was just light by odd street light. but im having fun learning with it today.

brenda

[ponder]

Brenda,
Most cameras have those same settings with a few different ones. It should tell you in the manual that came with the camera what the settings are used for too. SP is probably sports so if you want to shoot fast action you would use that setting.

M is manual and all of the setting are up to you to adjust. This is the setting I use 99 percent of the time.

A is for aperture priority, you set the opening of the camera and the camera will set the shutter speed automatically.

S ditto for above except you set the shutter speed and the camera sets the aperture.

P is program which gives you a few more features that you can set.

Auto is everything is set by the camera automatically and you have the least amount of control over the images you shoot.

Here's a link to some valuable information about your camera settings. http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_...s5000_pg2.html

Good luck with your new camera and welcome to BytePhoto.

Dave