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How To Master Your New Camera From Day One

And maybe take some pictures in the process

By Darryl BrooksPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

So, you decided to up your photography game with a new camera. Maybe you’ve been using a point-and-shoot, or just your cellphone to take pictures. But you wanted to take professional-looking photographs, so you bought a brand new DSLR or mirrorless camera.

You take the shiny new toy out of the box and, what?

What is all that stuff? Dials and buttons and screens, oh my. You are a bit intimidated, so you read the manual enough to know how to turn it on and set it to full auto. Wow, that works. You can just leave it right there and take great shots, right?

You now have an expensive, bulky, point-and-shoot camera.

You may look like you know what you are doing carrying around that fancy gear, but I can spot a poser from 100 yards, and so can any other photographer. If you are going to spend the money on that new camera, you might as well learn how to use it, so here goes.

Let’s rewind that film back to when you took it out of the box. Set it on the table and admire all the shiny things for a minute. Now take out the manual.

Wait, you don’t read instructions, you say?

Well, you’re going to read these. A lot. Over and over. So you might as well buckle down and get started.

Open the manual up and read the get started quick guides. Learn how to charge and put in the battery. But don’t stop there. Go to that section of the manual and read everything there is to know about charging and inserting the battery.

You want to be a battery charging and inserting ninja.

And that’s the way you are going to master the camera. Learn something. Do it. Do it again. Read about it again. Do it again. Rinse and repeat until you can do it in your sleep.

I know it’s not very sexy, but that’s the way to do it.

Now, while that battery is charging, take the camera in one hand and the manual in the other, and read it cover to cover. Look at the camera as each dial, button, and screen is referenced. You aren’t learning everything right now, but a few things will stick. And you will pick up on your first steps.

Like how to turn it on. Important stuff.

By now, the battery is charged, so use your battery ninja skills and insert it into the camera. Utilize everything you just mastered from reading the manual and turn it on.

Now go forth and take some pictures.

It doesn’t matter what. It can be your cat. It can be your neighbor’s cat. You can steal someone’s cat and take pictures of that. (No cats were harmed in the writing of this article.)

Mostly, just have some fun. Hopefully, you will come away with a few half-decent pictures, but mostly, you will have junk.

You just don’t know it yet.

And here is your first important lesson. This lesson is the hardest for any budding photographer to learn. I remember when I discovered it, and it was a very tough pill to swallow. But the earlier you learn it, the better you and your photography will be, and the quicker you will improve. Ready? Here it is.

You suck.

“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”

― Henri Cartier-Bresson

Okay. Henri said it better than me, but he meant the same thing.

You are going to reach a point, sooner or later, where you become unhappy with an image. Very unhappy. That time will come after you have learned a little and shot a lot. You will look at a photo that you thought was going to be great and it isn’t, and you are going to believe this:

What is wrong with my camera.

Or, if I had a new (fill in some shiny new toy here), I could take better pictures.

Here’s the deal, and if you learn it now, you will save a lot of time and money.

It’s not the equipment; it’s you.

So, hopefully, you are still on that first day, having gone out and shot a bunch of cats. Or crap. Or whatever.

Load all of those onto your computer into a folder called First Day. You are going to come back to them often. For now, you will go back to them and learn.

Someday, you will come back to them to cringe.

Look through them and figure out what is wrong with each one. Trust me; there is something wrong with all of them. Too dark? Too light? Blurry? For now, you will just have a vague idea of what is wrong, but that will get better in time.

Not today. In time.

Now, repeat step one. Camera in one hand, manual in the other. Cover to cover. Again.

As you read through this time, some things you will already know. Like how to turn it on. Other things will start to click a little bit. You’ll begin to think, “Ah, that’s what that doohickey is for,” or, “Maybe this will fix that problem.”

Now go out and do step two again. You didn’t let that cat get away, did you?

Repeat steps one and two. Over and over — that’s what repeat means.

As you do this, step two will get longer and longer as you learn more.

Step one will get shorter and shorter as you learn more.

And finally, you will be ready for step three. How to take photographs.

But that’s another article.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider dropping me a tip below. Thanks for reading.

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About the Creator

Darryl Brooks

I am a writer with over 16 years of experience and hundreds of articles. I write about photography, productivity, life skills, money management and much more.

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