Hello, newbie to the dSLR world
Hello folks, time to introduce myself. I'm Les, recently bought a dslr to try and get beyond the usual snapshot quality and hopefully find myself a long term hobby that gets me out and about !
My other hobbies at present are golf (mad keen but very average) and fly fishing. While both of these obviously get me out, they don't necessarily get me about, if you know what I mean.
Back to the photography; last year my interest surged to the point where I wanted to upgrade my "point and shoot" (a Ricoh R1). I didn't think I could justify the outlay of a proper dslr, so I bought one of those "bridge" superzooms, the Panasonic fz18.
The main reasons for doing this was the zoom, the reviews and the chance to shoot in raw, something I'd not heard of. I took it 2 holidays at the end of the year, and while the final quality was OK, very few photos blew me away. It was then I decided that if I was going to start taking photography seriously. I better bite the bullet and get some decent kit. Now I know that new kit doesn't mean better photos, but I've always liked my composition and subjects, but the Panasonic let me down on things like digital noise, depth of view etc.
So, last month I bought a shiny new Canon 40D with a EF-S 17-85mm IS USM lens. Since then I've added a 55-250 IS and a 50mm f2.8.
Of course I'm not in the National Geographic league yet (!), but I've definitely noticed a good deal of improvement in image quality. Its a very steep learning curve though, and I'm making a lot of mistakes. Hopefully, with a lot of practise and a lot of help from your good selves and this site, things will only get better.
If you bothered to read all the way to here, thanks !!
My other hobbies at present are golf (mad keen but very average) and fly fishing. While both of these obviously get me out, they don't necessarily get me about, if you know what I mean.
Back to the photography; last year my interest surged to the point where I wanted to upgrade my "point and shoot" (a Ricoh R1). I didn't think I could justify the outlay of a proper dslr, so I bought one of those "bridge" superzooms, the Panasonic fz18.
The main reasons for doing this was the zoom, the reviews and the chance to shoot in raw, something I'd not heard of. I took it 2 holidays at the end of the year, and while the final quality was OK, very few photos blew me away. It was then I decided that if I was going to start taking photography seriously. I better bite the bullet and get some decent kit. Now I know that new kit doesn't mean better photos, but I've always liked my composition and subjects, but the Panasonic let me down on things like digital noise, depth of view etc.
So, last month I bought a shiny new Canon 40D with a EF-S 17-85mm IS USM lens. Since then I've added a 55-250 IS and a 50mm f2.8.
Of course I'm not in the National Geographic league yet (!), but I've definitely noticed a good deal of improvement in image quality. Its a very steep learning curve though, and I'm making a lot of mistakes. Hopefully, with a lot of practise and a lot of help from your good selves and this site, things will only get better.
If you bothered to read all the way to here, thanks !!
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Hi Les, welcome to the site. Always nice to have another Canon user join us 
Don't be afraid of making mistakes, that's one of the beauties of digital. You'll find plenty of useful advice here in the forums to help you improve.
Don't forget to let us see some of your work.
John
Don't be afraid of making mistakes, that's one of the beauties of digital. You'll find plenty of useful advice here in the forums to help you improve.
Don't forget to let us see some of your work.
John
