Getting back in photography

faceman

Hello all. Im new to this particular forum and i was looking to get back into photography. (im actually an old school 35mm amateur, i only upgraded to digital last year!!!)

I have an olympus E400 and wanted to share experiences, ideas and photos with other like minded individuals.

Any ideas where i can start? Note im not a photo newb! Im just out of touch!

Thanks!

run_Forrest_run

welcome faceman, you can pretty much post up pics here for C&C, there are lots of helpful people on board(s). Also check out the stickys for handy info and tips.

unreggd

Step 1: Ready your camera

Step 2: Find something you wanna shoot

Step 3: Shoot it

Thirdfox

Step 4: join an online photo gallery site (flickr.com or pix.ie come to mind as good free sites) and share your shots with everyone

elven

Welcome

As Thirdfox says - join a hosting site (instructions in the sticky) and you can post some shots for C&C, check out the other FAQs in the sticky for tons of stuff about techniques, equipment, and general geekery, or post a thread with a topic that'll get us all arguing over our keyboards - that's what Fridays are for

Dades

Now you've gone digital - you'll have to get yerself some software.

You can download a trial of Photoshop, and after 30 days Lightroom, to keep you going for another 30 days!
I'm sure someone else will tell you what free stuff there is to get you started.

Even if you do nothing but up the contrast of your images it'll be worth it.

Calina

Dades, take it easy.

OP, start off slowly. Take photographs. Have fun. There is no point in being a slave to software (the addiction meetings are onerous when you realise your life is spent over a laptop and not out taking photographs).

You can get paint.net free, picasa has some stuff and there are some online editors as well (Flickr has one and pixen8 is nice too).

In terms of midprice, you have Photoshop Elements and Paintshop Pro, both around the 100E mark.

I'd only go after Photoshop when you identify things you want that the others can't do.

Me, I have Photoshop CS3, ACDSee Pro and Photoshop Elements. If you're not doing anything too elaborate, ACDSee's sole major lack is layers.

Calina

elven wrote: »

....or post a thread with a topic that'll get us all arguing over our keyboards - that's what Fridays are for

been a while since we had one of those. If I get rid of my headache, I might dream one up and see whether I can start a flame war.

duffarama

Hey Faceman,
If you need to know anything about your camera there are a handful of Olympus users here to assist you, like me

For now though I'd say all you need is to download picasa (for basic editing, that camera delivers a decent jpeg) and get a flickr or pix.ie page and take some photos to fill them with!

faceman

Thanks all!
Yeah im going to put my hands up. Ive never fiddled with photo software editing..

unless iphoto on a mac counts!!!

Calina

faceman wrote: »

Thanks all!
Yeah im going to put my hands up. Ive never fiddled with photo software editing..

unless iphoto on a mac counts!!!

Probably does, in my opinion.

Dades

Calina wrote: »

Dades, take it easy.

Hey, I only suggested playing with the contrast on trial software to start!

City-Exile

Post some pics, faceman, so that we can suss out your genre!
You've joined a very active forum, with a wonderful diversity.
If you can think of a subject, chances are there's someone here who photographs it brilliantly.

YeahOK

faceman wrote: »

Thanks all!
Yeah im going to put my hands up. Ive never fiddled with photo software editing..

unless iphoto on a mac counts!!!

It's about all I do in terms of PP with my photos!

I have Aperture as well, must actually find the time to sit down and get myself up to speed on it.

But as someone else on here said, just go take some photos and see how you go, figure out what you need to / want to figure out as you go along.

faceman

thanks for the support folks. Im going to get snapping this weekend. Maybe i'll post some snaps and you can give me some tips on how photo editing can improve them.