You just bought yourself, or they just gave you, a magnificent reflex photo camera. You’ve been wanting to have one for a long time, and now you have it in your hands. I understand the emotion that overwhelms you 🙂 You have taken the first step in what will end up becoming – believe me – a true unleashed passion.
To accompany you on your first “reflex” days, I would like to share with you 7 things that I would recommend you do now but right now. Some will seem almost bullshit to you. They are not. If only someone had told me about them when I was taking my first steps in photography. It would have saved me a lot of headaches, hours and hours looking in the instruction manual, and some other wasted savings due to ignorance and lack of experience. Hopefully this experience of mine will help you and everyone who visits this blog to live a much more pleasant initiation experience.
Let’s go there.
7 Things you should do when buying your first SLR camera
1- Download the Manual in PDF
Yes, I know your camera came with a piece of paper manual. But I recommend that you search and download the instruction manual in PDF. Today all brands publish their manuals in PDF, for almost all models I guess.
Having a PDF copy makes things a lot easier. On the one hand, you will always have the manual, you can store it on your computer, on your iPhone, or save it in your email and consult it wherever you are. On the other hand, and this is the most interesting thing, in a PDF it is much easier to search for a term or word: you simply press Ctrl + F (Ctrl + B on some computers) and a small box will appear in which you write the term that interests you, for example aperture, focus, or whatever you want, and hit Enter. You will immediately be able to access all sections of the manual where that term or concept has been mentioned. Much more practical than flipping through the pages of a paper manual.
2- Customize your camera, buttons, menu etc.
Most DSLR cameras today allow you to customize their menu, buttons, and features. There are many people who don’t know this at first, and you really can’t get an idea of ​​how easy and practical it is to use a reflex camera adapted to your tastes and your photographic style.
3- Buy Polarizer and UV filter
I have already spoken on other occasions about filters and their practical function. Don’t let a lot of time go by without buying some. At least you need to have a Polarizing filter to photograph natural landscapes and another UV filter to simply protect the lens from scratches and dust.
4- Buy a backpack / tripod
The first is essential. Without a backpack of your own, the simple thought of doing an outdoor photo shoot makes you lazy. That of walking with the camera in hand all the time, sitting on a terrace to have a drink and leaving it on the table, going on a trip and having to squeeze it inside the suitcase to fit it, all of that tires in the long run and you end up leaving the photograph entirely. Hence the need to have a good backpack that protects and helps you transport your photographic equipment.
The tripod is already optional. With that I do not mean that it depends on the desire you have to buy it. Rather it depends on the type of photography you intend to do. Are you going to want to do night photography? Do you want to photograph a sunset? Are you attracted to long exposure photography? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then yes, you need to buy a friendly tripod. Failing to do so will put you at risk of blurry, shaky photos, getting frustrated, and thinking that photography isn’t your thing.
5- Collect anti-humidity bags
Objectives and photographic material are sensitive to moisture as it easily makes them victims of fungus. You do not believe me? Take a look (not for sensitive souls) at this then, now thisand this other exampleand this? and what about this? Scary right? Preventing it is as easy as gathering a few anti-humidity bags, the kind that come out in the boxes of electronic devices and clothing, and leaving a few in the backpack where we have stored our objectives. These bags will be responsible for absorbing all the moisture around the target.
6- Create your inspiration folder (if you didn’t already have it)
An inspiration folder is a dossier inside your computer (or flash drive or wherever you prefer) where you keep photos that you find on the Internet, photos of those that you see and you can’t stop sighing with desire. This folder in the background is something symbolic, it represents what moves us in photography, what we are passionate about, it represents small challenges that we would like, one day, to be able to achieve. I keep my own inspiration folder in which I have photos of great artists and anonymous photographers that I find on the Internet, photos that I admire and that represent for me the perfect excuse to practice photographic exercises that I have not yet achieved.
7- Become a VIP Reader of the Photographer’s Blog
my work in the Photographer’s Blog it is to divulge and spread the photographic knowledge that I myself am learning, sharing it with as many people as I can. However, in parallel to everything I publish here, I maintain a close circle of friends whom I regularly feed with exclusive and unpublished content that is not published on the blog. I am sending these contents by email to everyone who signs up for this circle of readers (totally free).
If you like photography and you want to take it seriously, I recommend that you become a VIP Reader.
That said, welcome to this fascinating world of SLR photography. I hope these 7 short tips have been useful to you. If so, I would appreciate a vote/recommendation on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ (It’s there on the left, don’t you see it?)