Learning Photography

[TFitch85]

Hey everyone.. I am new to this site, and I'm hoping that someone can recommend some good books or websites that can help me with learning to understand photography a little better. I recently purchased a Fuji Finepix S5700 because I wanted a step up from the standard point-and-shoot cameras. But I am still trying to learn exactly how to use it. I'm not very familiar with figuring out which film speeds and shutter speeds, etc to use. I have always been interested in photography and I really want to start taking awesome pictures. So if anyone knows of any sites or books that I should into to help me understand more, I would greatly appreciate your help. Thanks!!

[Bynx]

TFich if you go to www.pando.com and download the free software, email me when its installed and I will email you back all the books you will need for getting into digital photography. The email package is about 350 Mb. Pando allows up to 1 Gig emails between users of Pando.

[Turn]

go to www.digg.com and just look up photography, there are many articles on techniques and stuff

[tim11]

The first step is to read the camera user manual and be familiar with all its functions; the basic functions at least. Then find the materials like the other posters suggest. There are numerous free materials on the internet.
You can also check out your local library for photography magazines for techniques, compositions; etc. It really doesn't matter if the magazines are old from film days since techniques are basically the same.
And don't hesitate to apply your new found knowledge with your camera and see the effects.

[Benjamin2007]

I agree with Tim11.

The manual is the best place to start, I'd recommend reading the basic features, photography techniques etc at least, and use the Advanced features section as reference when you need to know how to use particular features/settings etc.

In addition to his good advice, I'd suggest that you check out the following threads on this site:
*Tips and Techniques (lots of useful threads here, particularly the sticky by Gary Hendricks)
*In this Fuji thread: Photos from the Fuji S-700 (particularly the photo tutorials by Speaklightly, although lots of other interesting advice from other photographers)
*General Digital Photography Chat (some useful threads about accessories, techniques etc)

If you feel the need, you could check Amazon out for some books on specific forms of photography eg landscape etc.

cheers,