How to shoot a well exposed picture

Reason I bought my 400D was to get great pictures similar to what I see on reviews and professional photographers albums.

I am interested in mainly portrait and wedding photography.

Any piece of advise that well help me will be appreciated like tips on camera settings you mostly use to shoot protrait and weddings.

I have and will be using these lenses only (budget): kit lens (18-55), 28-105, and 50/1.8.

thanks a lot

The reason you see great Photographs on reviews, and Professional Photo Albums is because these people spend a lot time and money on their equipment, and know how to PP a photo.
Try and work in your equipments ability, and will get some great photos with your existing equipment, but don't be disappointed it will not match the ones you see every time else where

My advice is to use the equipment as much as possible, and learn it well, read and study others technics, and save up for some better Glass.

Get a BIG memory card. Do a lot of reading. Practice, practice, practice !!!

MaDProFF wrote in post #4010014
The reason you see great Photographs on reviews, and Professional Photo Albums is because these people spend a lot time and money on their equipment, and know how to PP a photo.

Good Exposure isn't from expensive equipment or really great PP. You can get a proper exposure with practice and experience.

Agree with comments above. Read "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson, best book IMHO

I replied to the post not the topic

aymanmb wrote in post #4009958
Reason I bought my 400D was to get great pictures similar to what I see on reviews and professional photographers albums.

I am interested in mainly portrait and wedding photography.

Any piece of advise that well help me will be appreciated like tips on camera settings you mostly use to shoot protrait and weddings.

Hardware alone will do virtually nothing for you in the quest for high quality photographs. A decent point-n-shoot in the hands of an experienced photographer can produce some amazing work.

What you need to focus on (pun intended ) is learning the basics of photography techniques. This includes learning about MANY facets of photography including such things as: exposure control, focus control, controlling depth-of-field, the basics of composition, lighting control techniques (for both natural and artificial lighting), the choice of focal lengths to control elements of the composition, camera control (to avoid blur due to camera/lens motion, etc. The more I think about it, the more titles I can come up with.

For starters, concentrate on learning and understanding exposure control. I strongly suggest that you put the camera into fully manual exposure mode (the "M" dial position) and leave it there. Get a decent light meter such as the Sekonic L-358 (especially if you intend to use studio flash equipment in the future) and use only the handheld light meter during the learning process. Once you understand all the basics (choices of ISO settings, aperture settings, and shutter speed settings and WHY you would make the different choices), then you can migrate to using the camera's meter and a little automation. After mastering the basics you will know when you need to over-ride the camera's thinking.

Learning to be really good at photography is much like learning to play a musical instrument. The really basic stuff is fairly easy to master if you put a little effort into it, but getting all of the details down pat takes a lot of learning and practice over time.

Thanks a lot for your comments, I appreciate very much your advises sepcially the last post.

regards

Ditto - I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This will walk you through step by step what Skip had stated.

Michael

Believe it or not, buying a camera is half the battle. As you get better and better over time, you'll start changing that "half the battle" mentality and essentially have your camera do all the work with your photographs. In a digital world that we live in, photography is now so manipulatable that even if you take a picture in the wrong exposure, given the right software, you can correct that mistake, essentially they call that post-processing.

There are two views to that. The first half will take the time to improve on their mistakes so that they can spend less time "post-processing" and the other half will rely heavily on "post-processing" to ensure they get the best out of a photograph.

For starters, learn your camera, learn how light interact with things, learn the dynamics of composition and then move on to learning how to post-process. IN MY OPINION, a good balance of the two is the way to go. Of course, I strive to ensure I spend less time "post-processing" but depending on certain pictures, I will spend the extra time to make the picture...tell a story.