Please tell me I didn't waste my money

[Southpaw]

LOL yeah I figure I have to sort of understand what I'm doing in order to see results. At least for a while, I'll be satisfied as long as my pictures aren't blurry. lol. I typically don't shoot in auto anyway because I like playing with the aperture, but I've never messed around with shutter speed or anything so I need to learn more about that.

[Miakoda]

Originally Posted by Xandra

Right now I have a $1000 point and shoot BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE THE THING. lol! Don't be me Southpaw.

(and I'm going to read your recommendation InLimbo)

LOL! You sound like me! All I've learned how to do is to take a photo in black and white...basic black and white....and I often forget how I got to that option in the first place.

[Zoom]

For anyone with a new camera that is more than just a P&S, play around with it! That's how I've learned to use my D50, I just constantly fiddle with settings to see what I get and make note of the ones I like.

[Southpaw]

This camera at least FOCUSES lol. And if it doesn't want to do it for me, that's what manual focus is for. (Except, manual focus doesn't work on my 55-200mm lens--which it did say in the auction, I just didn't think it would annoy me this much!) My P&S just wouldn't focus. Or it would take like 10 seconds to focus. And considering I'm usually photographing animals that happen to move once in a while, that wasn't working.

I still need to play around with the manual settings, but at the moment, even the shots I'm getting on Auto are miles and miles better than the results I was getting before. So it's fair to say this wasn't a waste of money!