Just like you can't learn to drive a car by reading the manual, you can't learn how to use your camera buy reading the manual.
Hopefully this can help someone out.

I'll start with Aperture Priority (AV or A mode)
You set the aperture and the camera automatically sets the other setting to create the correct exposure.
This is probably the mode I use the most, I like it because its pretty hard to get wrong.
What is aperture? its how open the lens is when taking the photo (how much light is let into the camera) and is measured in f/ numbers (f/stops).
The lower the f/ number the Larger the aperture is, this lets more light into the image sensor
The higher the f/ number the smaller the aperture, this lets less light into the image sensor.

How does this affect your photos?
1. Shutter Speed:
a) At a lenses lowest aperture say f/1.8 the aperture is wide open (on my lens), at f/1.8 95% of the time I can use the fastest possible shutter speed for the situation with out under exposing the photo.

b) At a lenses highest aperture say f/36, the lens has the smallest possible opening and 99% of the time you can use the slowest possible shutter speed for the situation, and get the correct exposure.

*note: When in aperture priority if you 1/2 press the shutter and the shutter speed flashes the photo will either be under or overexposed and you need to adjust the aperture.

2. DOF, Depth of Field.
a) A lenses lowest f/ number creates a shallow depth of field, This means that the area where the camera is focused is sharp, and the areas in the foreground and background are blurred.
This image is at an Aperture of f/1.8

b) a lenses highest f/ number creates and deeper depth of field and a larger percentage of the image will be sharp and in focus

This was taken with the same lens but using f/14 (not the lens highest f/ number)

*note: Low f/ number are great for portraits, flowers animals ect as they isolate the subject, create depth and cause the subject to pop out of the image, also good for capturing fast moving subjects
High f/ numbers are great for landscapes, multiple subjects ect, BUT BE AWARE THIS WILL CAUSE LONGER EXPOSURE TIMES, a tripod is recommended.

one last example

*note: while the apurtures and shutter speed are different the in both photos, and exposure remains pretty much the same.
Also note the reduced DOF is the photo on the left, the PS3 and pillow are blurred, where in the photo on the right they are sharper.
SO
Smaller f/numbers = Bigger apertures
Bigger aperture = Faster shutter speed, and shallower depth of field

Bigger f/numbers = Smaller apertures
Smaller apertures = Slower shutter speed, and a larger dept of field.

Auto Focus
Sick of camera auto focusing on the wrong area? Select AF points. I have my camera set to only the center AF works. I point the camera and subject half press the shutter, and the camera focuses, with the shutter still half pressed I re-frame the image (move the camera so the Subject is where I want it within the frame)
*Note: use the rule of 1/3's: (This is known as composition.
-try to avoid having your subject in the center of the frame
-when doing landscape try to avoid having the horizon in the center
Example


Moving Subject?
Go into the cameras menu and change the AF mode to AI servo.
In AI Servo mode, when the shutter is half pressed the camera will continually refocus on what ever is behind the AF point.
*note: In AI Servo you CAN NOT re-frame the subject.

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RAW, I recommend shooting in RAW, you can badly stuff photos up, and Fox them using a program like Adobe Camera Raw.
RAW files save a lot more information (which can be recovered) that normally gets lost/deleted when shooting in JPEG

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Want to get fancy? Try HDR.
We have all seen those surreal landscape photos and wondered how its  done, well alot of them are done using HDR
What is HDR? It stands for High Dynamic Range, and basically its a type of photo processing which uses a number of photos at different exposures and blends them into one image.
So you take 3 or more photos at different exposers, for example 1 normal 1 over exposed and 1 underexposed

In the normal photo the sky is probably to bright and the foreground to dark, with some ok stuff in between
In the overexposed photo the sky will be way to bright, the foreground ok, and the stuff in the middle a bit brighter than before.
In the underexposed photo the sky will look great, and everything else will look to dark

would you like the best of all 3? HDR does this.

HDR example
Before:

After:


This was created in a program called Photomatix.
You can use AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) in the cameras menu to take different exposures, it can also be done manually, see your camera manual

*note: when doing this its best not to have anything moving, its 3 or more images overlapping remember so if things move (clouds people trees what ever) it will create ghosting. If you look at the above example you can see some ghosting of the flax in the foreground

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Must Haves
-Tripod, a decent one is worth is
-Polarizing filter, just like your fishing glasses, it cuts reflection from non-metallic surfaces, and also bring out awesome contrast in the sky (whiter clouds and bluer skies)
-Graduated filter. Hate it how bright skies make your landscapes dark? these fix that, its a filter that fades from dark to clear, you put the dark side over the sky down to the horizon and the clear over the land/sea/ what ever. These also bring out the contrast is the clouds.
 - you can also get the above filters in different colours, to make that sunset look even better.
-Remote shutter, great for long exposures, and photo where you want to be away from the camera, and the eliminate the camera shake caused by pressing the shutter on the camera.
-Off camera flash, with wireless trigger, if you like taking photos of "stuff" this is for you, you can also add umbrellas for portraits ect.

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Here are a couple of my photos with one of my favorite set ups.
Fixed 50mm f/1.8 II lens, with a wireless flash, and an umbrella, I also used the a remote shutter.
enjoy




this is water dripping into an Ice Cream container, the red comes from the flash reflecting of my snowboard jacked.

Some bloody great info here, its pretty much what I learnt out of a whole year of photography at school.

Nice thread, but very biased... Towards Canon. For Nikon users swap AV for A, TV for S, M for M. Why Canon came up with 'TV' for shutter priority is beyond me.

Personally I HATE the rule of thirds, rules are there to be broken. But a very good thread and should really be made a sticky. It's what you need to know to begin photography. Well done 17HMRBT
I look forward to seeing more posts like this and some more of your pic's.

I agree, i look at other forums to get info,but were better place to get info on outdoor photography then here.

Theres a few guys on here that really know there stuff and im willing to listen if the will depart with some knowledge on photography.

I would really like to know the in's and out's of shooting the moon, and night photography, also sunsets and what filters will help me.

Roaring_Red wrote on Nov 17^th, 2009 at 12:53pm:


Yep that's what i found too R_R. I found the best way to get a good shot of the moon was to shoot at dusk when the sky was still light ish, and that way the moon isn't such a bright contrast in comparison with the pitch black sky around it, and my cam could pick up the detail in it. I then went into photoshop and took the colour out of the sky (desaturated and levels) so that it looked exactly like i shot it at night time, except it had a lot more detail.
If shooting at night time, i had to adjust the exposure and shoot about 3 or 4 full stops below 0 until it came up with any decent detail.
It's all just trial and error though, gotta love digital!

SIKADDICTION. wrote on Nov 17^th, 2009 at 8:12am:


This is my only moon shot, it came out shit for a number of reasons. It was just after sunset and the sky was still blue so it wasnt contrasting enough, and It wasnt focused correctly.

FYI the moon isn't at Infinity Focus.

1/400 @ f/5.6, ISO200 (I don't know why should have been 100 but i didn't realise, 300mm

This is an unaltered shot of the moon. Here'e what I went thru to get it... EOS350D, 2x teleconvertor, 1.4x teleconvertor, 400mm telephoto lens. Tripod, mirror lockup, cable released. With all that magnification, the mirror flipping up caused vibration that was clearly visible thru the viewfinder, which ruined the shot. 1/125, f11, asa400.     On the computor, if I zoom in and look close, I can see the craters and eploded bits and even little bits of rock!... Nah not really, but it is surprising what can be seen.