Friday, April 13, 2012

Learning to Use my Digital SLR Camera

When we first moved to Alberta, I took pictures with a plain ole point and shoot camera or my iPhone.  But the more my husband and I explored the mountains, the more obvious it became that we needed something better suited for the job. We did a little research and decided on a Nikon D5100.

Photography has always been a hobby of mine but I never ventured beyond those automatic settings. Here's what I've learned after making an effort to understand my new camera's manual: I don't want to know. Ha! Yes, I am that lame. I just want to aim the camera and press the button. 

Luckily for me, the camera takes great photos when set in automatic. To test the results when the camera is left to it's own devices, I spent most of the day on Tuesday in Banff National Park, taking photos ranging from grand vistas to small shards of ice. 


JOHNSTON CANYON












CASTLE MOUNTAIN



LAKE LOUISE




The camera does a beautiful job even though I'm not patient enough to learn the manual settings. I'll play around with them in the future, but I"m glad the automatic settings will cover for me so nicely in the meantime. 

So what about you? Have you upgraded to a DSLR camera? How are you doing with those instructions? 

9 comments:

Margaux NH said...

These are excellent. Thank you so much for sharing.

I've never learned any complicated settings on any camera I've owned. I find for outdoor shots in good weather, a fair camera can take great pictures.

If you're doing portraits and low light indoor shots (concerts!) then it would be helpful to know what you're doing -- which is why all my concert pics are tiny blurs.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful pics! I want a new camera.


PFS

Anonymous said...

The pictures are just beautiful. Have one also just keep it on automatic, they never seem to come out right when I use the settings. My DD knows how to set up and use properly, she has taken some beautful pics herself.

JI

Barbara said...

Gorgeous photos, Caryl!! Chris got one of those fancy SLR cameras. It takes great pictures. Only problem is he ends up clicking like crazy resulting in 1400 pictures from one trip. Overwhelming to go back and try to pick out the best ones.

Anonymous said...

Are you kidding me? I wish I could use a throw away camera... that is how stupid I am when it comes to stuff like that! I'm glad you share your beautiful stuff with us! Holy cow, you are talented. Your NE sista

caryl said...

I know what you mean, Barb! I had a hard enough time choosing photos for this blog post! In fact, I think i posted one photo twice. I'll go back and check.

caryl said...

thanks for all the comments, everyone!

Jackie Bouchard said...

I got a DSLR last year... still using the auto settings! I've had on my to-do list "read camera instructions" for over a year now... Pathetic. But it takes great pics on the auto setting, so.... I keep being lazy. But I really do need to learn how to use it properly one of these days.

caryl said...

I dunno. Since the pix come out so great in auto, maybe that's all we need to know.