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Original poster

Entering world of Digital SLR photography - please help!

3 replies

bumpbumpbump · 03/04/2008 22:18

35mm film photography was so straightforward, but I'm finally moving into the 21 century and going digital. I want to start off on the right foot but am feeling daunted by the technology.
Should I shoot in JPeg or RAW?
Do I need anything special for keeping my pics on the PC? Is the My Pictures bit of Windows XP where I should store my photos - or is there another piece of software I should be using just for storing them?
Any good tips on not getting in a muddle with the files on computer?
There are different choices for numbering the pics on the camera - is it best to use the option that goes from 1 - 9999 even if you change the card?
Eventually I'd like to edit photos with Photoshop type thing - anyone got tips on what programmes are good - is the cheaper basic version of Photoshop good?
Camera arriving soon, point me in the right direction!

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MNHQ

Tech · 04/04/2008 19:39

Sorry about that - we'll have a look at this over the weekend.

MNHQ

Tech · 04/04/2008 22:41

picture uploading should be OK now.

MNHQ

YetMoreTech · 05/04/2008 07:21

bumpbumpbump, digital photography is a lot like 35mm film photography. The results you'll get are far more determined by good technique (get in close, avoid using flash wherever possible except in bright sunlight, etc.) than your camera and definitely more than by how you choose to store your pictures.

But we all like an easy life so that being said, anyone that takes a lot of photographs and manages them by copying the files around by hand doesn't know what they're missing. Applications like "Aperture" (on the Mac) and Lightroom (on the PC) are fabulous because not only will they keep everything organised but they allow you to do non-destructive editing. You're only ever applying adjustments in layers on top of an image so you can always go back. You don't have to explicit create copies and backups, they do it all for you. Plus you can very easily apply the same adjustments to a whole batch of photographs. Yes you can do these things with Photoshop and the like, but nothing like as quickly. Revert to Photoshop only when you need to do selective retouching and other such manipulations.

RAW or JPeg? People use RAW to make them feel clever. In 99 cases out of 100 it won't make a difference to the quality of the end result and if you don't already know when that other 1 case is it won't matter anyway. One could upload pictures here all day long and nobody could tell you whether you've used raw or jpg. Raw takes up more space on your memory card, takes longer to write, takes longer to upload, takes longer to process, takes longer to backup and so on. Life is too short - take more pictures instead.

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