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So, You Want to Shoot With the Big Kids

How to Migrate From a Point and Shoot to a Digital SLR Camera

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

As you go around with your little point and shoot camera, you may see people with their big fancy digital SLR cameras and all the lenses and flashes and think you need one of those. But how do you move from the little camera you know, to one with all the fancy knobs and switches? That is what this article is all about. I will describe a migration path from shooting with a point and shoot to taking pictures with a DSLR.

The first question you need to answer is why change to begin with. What is wrong with the pictures you are taking now, and how will that get fixed with a new camera? If you just don’t like the images or think they don’t look as good as others you have seen, you need to start with the photographer.

Get a basic book on photography and composition and learn some of the rules and guidelines for taking good pictures. If you are making mistakes with your point and shoot, a DSLR is only going to make your mistakes more expensive.

Okay, you have decided that a new camera is really what you need. Maybe you like shooting wildlife or sports and need to get in close with a big zoom lens, or you want some other functionality that is only offered on a DSLR. The next step is to buy one.

There are two parts of a DSLR, the camera body and the lens. Both components have versions ranging from inexpensive to outrageously expensive. Where do you start? If you aren’t sure, get a starter kit with the low end in both components. But if you want to spend more money and can’t decide between an expensive body or an expensive lens, go with the lens. A high-quality lens will outlast the camera body, so buy it now, and you will never have to buy it again.

Now you have a camera with a lens attached. We don’t care what lens at this point. How do you get started? All DSLRs have a full auto mode. Put the camera there while you are learning, and you have an expensive point and shoot. This mode does all the thinking for you. Go out and shoot a lot. Look at what you have done, and learn how to improve on it. Read the manual. Shoot some more. Read the manual again. Learn every control on the camera by playing around, but leave it on full auto while you are taking pictures. This gives you the safety and security of a point and shoot while you learn the bells and whistles of the DSLR.

Once you are comfortable, experiment with the other programmed modes. These are marked by a little flower, person, mountain, etc. Read the manual concerning these modes, but they will set the camera to different settings to give you the best image of portraits, close-ups, landscapes, etc. It allows a little bit more flexibility while still giving you that point and shoot safety net.

Next, move the camera from Auto to P or program mode. Refer to your manual to learn how to do this. P mode still picks the shutter speed and aperture for you (you know what those are from reading the manual, right?), but it allows you to change and experiment with other settings, such as the ISO and white balance. In this mode, you can play and experiment with all the different settings on the camera without having to think about exposure. Get familiar with these changes and understand how each affects the picture before moving on.

Now you are ready to learn more about exposure. As you know from your reading, this is based on the relationship between shutter speed and aperture. So now you are going to work on these a bit. Start with Aperture Priority mode. Set the camera there and change the aperture to f8 or f5.6. Now shoot different subjects under different lighting conditions and watch how the camera adjusts the shutter speed for each one. Also, look at the final result and see how the combination of these apertures and shutter speed affected each picture.

Look at the images that didn’t come out very well and determine from the shutter speed or aperture what went wrong. Was it blurry because the shutter speed was too slow? Once you are comfortable, change the aperture to all the other settings. Experiment with the extremes your lens allows from 2.8 to 22 and see how these affect the final image.

Now do the same thing with Shutter Priority. Start at 1/200th or so. Observe how different light affects the aperture and do the same experiments you did with aperture priority. Now move the shutter speed down and learn how slow you can set it and still get good handheld images. Move it up to the fastest speed you can and see how this freezes movement.

And finally, once you have mastered these two techniques, move it up to full manual mode. Don’t worry; the camera will still meter the light and tell you if it is too dark or too light. Also remember, it’s digital. You get to delete your mistakes. Learning manual mode will significantly enhance your understanding of how shutter speed and aperture work together to change the way an image looks. But, you don’t need to leave it in manual mode. Shoot in whichever mode gives you the best results and in which you are most comfortable.

The main things to remember are:

Read the manuals

Experiment

Learn from your mistakes

Owning and using a digital SLR camera can be an enriching experience, but there is some time involved. In the end, though, you can become a better photographer.

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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