ok girls…answering questions here but certainly go quickly without delay to your nearest camera store for a better and more accurate Q & A…

up until november 2009 my favorite camera was a nikon d60 – nikon is known for it’s glass and i find it to be more than user friendly and there are so many great books that dive into teaching the camera, although the manual and free DVD is fabulous too….this camera is a wonderful camera for novice “auto” mode users and will deliver wonderful pictures with a manageable size and weight for lugging around…. initially i bought mine with the two standard lenses and while they are absolutely adequate i wouldn’t suggest it IF your intent is to learn photography and your camera well and progress past auto…

my intent is to be able to shoot all of my own pictures for the businesses and learn my camera very well….sooooo…in my opinion the best purchase in the lense department is a 50mm 1.4- it is a huge and heavy piece of glass that produces a fabulous “real” image…a shallow depth of field (blurry background)…i bought the sigma brand lense and have been thrilled with it…actually if i had it to do again….i would buy ONLY the 50mm fixed lense and my camera body and grow from there…

sooo…my recent purchase? i have recently decided that in order to progress again i needed to purchase a semi-professional camera that offered almost the same features and abilities as a professional grade camera….i will be learning my new camera body a NIKON 300s over the next forever…..paired with my 50mm 1.4 (don’t by the 1.8), a wide-angle lense (which is really great for just a few things but not children’s photography really), and a new 70-200 telescopic lense i should be set….oh…btw…i try really really hard not to have to use a flash…i don’t own a separate flash and simply detest what it does to your subject if used incorrectly…i prefer taking pictures in a situation where the natural light is all you need and your light sensitivity can do the rest (ISO)….not that i have thought about how i feel about that

i cannot describe or answer questions better than those who do this for a living….please visit thepioneerwoman.com and see her backlog of posts on photography – she also has a wonderful set of actions for photoshop when you are ready….happy reading….(***priority reading, “what the heck is aperture?” & “what the heck is shutter speed?”….

it is crucial that you understand your camera, how light affects what you are trying to capture and how to set how much light is coming in to your camera and how fast….once you understand aperture and shutter-speed your pictures will improve drastically, you will detest auto mode, and before long you will be just as addicted as i am…
good luck with that….

blessings…