Learn to operate a camera before you own one.

Would you believe there are professional photographers out there that don’t fully know how to control their camera? It’s true. How do I know? I keep coming across people in day to day life, owning equipment worth a fortune and not knowing the basic functions of the camera. Yep, it’s a big ugly truth. We started off shooting in Aperture Priority mode, and let the camera do the thinking for us, assuming it was faster and easier than learning all that scary technical stuff. And you can fake it here for a while. Cameras are smarter than ever, and they can get pretty close for you. But not knowing this stuff will truly hold you back, and keep you firmly in the “fluking it” category. What the one really needs to understand is the essential features of your camera and your lens, and knowing how that affects the look of your images. You need to know how changing your aperture changes the look of your photo. You need to understand how to set your shutter speed to get the results you want. You need to be able to make decisions with your ISO that fit your situation.And then, based on what features your camera has, you’ll need to know about drive modes, white balance, focusing, stabilization modes and so on.Luckily this stuff isn’t as hard as it sounds.

In fact you can learn it all in just a few hours. Once you do, you’ll be ready to move on to the next level. #learntooperate