some tips ?

<p>hello ,</p>

<p>i bought a canon 600d camera with a lense of 18/135</p>

<p>i started shooting : RAW </p>

<p>and a friend said that youre a beginner , you should shoot in Raw</p>

<p>he is a great photographer</p>

<p>so , is there any other tips for an 100% beginner ? </p>

<p>Read and reread your user manual until you understand it and are comfortable understanding it. Then shoot lots and gain practical experience.</p>

<p>My advice, which I follow myself:</p>

<ul>

<li>Shoot raw and JPEG simultaneously whenever possible. The JPEG gives us a baseline for comparison, from which we can freely edit the raw file later. And the JPEGs may turn out well enough that it's unnecessary to edit from the raw file.<br /><br />But *do* shoot raw as well - it captures more data which can help in recovering highlights from extremely contrasty scenarios, or selectively reducing noise in low light or high ISO situations, or minimizing posterizing in solid blocks of color or large expanses of blue sky.<br /><br /></li>

<li>Shoot freely and without hesitation. I've often regretted missing a shot because I hesitated. I've never regretted shooting more than I "needed". The delete button works just fine when I shoot duplicates or some photos simply weren't interesting. But there is no time travel button to compensate for hesitating and missing a shot.</li>

</ul>

<p>And relative to both bits of advice - storage space is cheap. Media cards and hard drives cost a tiny fraction of what they cost when I first began shooting raw and JPEG simultaneously.</p>

<p>Expect a lot of failures. It's normal. Enjoy the pictures anyway.</p>

<p>Hi Fares,<br>

Congrats on the camera....Shoot lots, laugh with yourself and have a great time! <br>

Set yourself short goals...ie...1 week spend on paying attention to the f-stop...take lots of the same image, varying the aperture...notice what the f-stop does...<br>

Do the same another week with shutter speed and iso...<br>

Most importantly...have fun with your camera...<br>

Warren</p>

<p>Buy a second disk drive (external) for your computer. Keep copies of all of your files (photos) on both disks in case one of them fails.</p>

<p>Find post-processing software that seems comfortable to use and learn to use it well.</p>

<p>Shoot whenever you can. Try new things. Review your images carefully to determine what works and what doesn't. </p>

<p>Watch online tutorials and learn as much as you can.</p>

<p>When you can afford it, pick up a device to calibrate your monitor. They are not very expensive, and it will make a big difference in your ability to process your photo files.</p>

<p>Follow your own heart, passion, and vision rather than trying to duplicate the look of someone else's photos.</p>

<p>What Dan wrote.</p>

<p>Be critical of yourself; find somebody who is willing to give you honest feedback (friends and family will love your photos, typically; you will not learn a lot from such praise); he or she does not have to be great photographer, but somebody who can explain you why a photo does or doesn't work.<br>

Find a subject you are passionate about and dive in. Develop a vision. Which takes a lot of time, so learn to have patience as well :-)</p>

<p>And learn the technicalities too, for example the book Understanding Exposure of Bryan Peterson or the Learning section here. A good photographer needs the technical skills as much as he needs the creative vision.</p>

<p>What everyone else said, plus, be your own worst critic. Don't put too much weight on the feedback from a site like flickr, where it's mostly just reciprocal (ie. I'll like your photo if you'll like mine). Mind you, I do use flickr to basically keep a record of the photos I've taken that I really like and to show friends and family when interested, but that's it. If you like your stuff, then that's really all that matters, though it does help to look at other examples of shots taken of the same subject to see how you might have improved yours. </p>

<p>Try shooting RAW and Large Jpeg. That is the first thing I did when I got my first digital camera, You might not be able to tell the difference between the two.</p>

<p>The point, I think, of shooting RAW files as a newbie is that, if you save them, later on when you have become an old sophisticate, you'll be able to come back to those priceless sets of full data and get a lot more out of the pictures.</p>

<p>For now, the jpegs will probably serve most of your needs, but it's always nice to "save the negative," so to speak.</p>

<p>Practice as much as possible, independently from the results and technique that will come with time you will learn to see things like the camera does. Look at your pictures and even if they seem plain try to crop them, reframe them to pick up interesting details... and remember that rules are more guidelines than anything else, dont get too crazy with those or you will spoil the fun.<br>

Ps: even stuff about drawing and painting and illustations and comic books can teach you a lot about framing and composition</p>