Originally posted by graphicfunk:
general: what I meant is that it does not make sense to shoot pictures until one understands the basics. Here, the neophyte get practice with challenges. This is the same as not driving a car until one understands the controls. You need know about the combustion engine nor about parallax error to work a camera, but you need to learn about them f stops and simple things like dof, etc..in order to do justice to what ever it is that you want to shoot. |
I find with modern cameras in auto mode (pun intended -- sorry) the neophyte is pretty much free to concentrate on choosing and framing the subject -- those basics I agree with.
As for knowing the camera, they pretty much just have to know how to trip the focus/shutter release mechanism and download the photo, with an adequate (if not artistic) exposure resulting. I agree that the more they learn how to control the camera, and which settings work under which conditions, the better photos will result.
To use your driving analogy, entering a challenge here (with a P+S camera, especially) can be more like steering the car down the center of the road, with the accelerator, brake, shifting, and collision-avoidance taken care of by computer. |
