So you just picked up your camera... Now what do you do. You did your research, scoured the internet, asked friends posted questions on line and you finally made a decision. So there it is in all its glory, your new camera. It's glaring at you like an eager puppy, you too are excited. Then it hits you, I've never had one of these before what do I do now? The instruction manual is there, bit honestly who reads those?
There are a few steps that you can take to set off on the right foot. First things first is it all there, you want to make sure you have the bits and pieces that you laid out your hard earned cash for. Now that you know it's all there get out that charger and battery and start charging up, but that takes going to take forever right? Well that leads us back to that pesky old manual, whether it is on line or in the old dead tree form, now's as good as a time as any. Find yourself a cozy little corner of where ever and a beverage of choice and crack it open. It sure is a page turner isn't it, a regular 50 blades of aperture. But seriously there is much to be learned but a simple perusing of the old manual, and you don't have to tell any body that you read it, we'll just keep that between us.
So now that you have gone through your manual, finished your beverage and charged your battery your ready to go out and shoot..... right after you set up your camera. Yes I know you want to go out and create but if you don't do it now it might never happen, and you will thank yourself in the end. As they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I'll recommend a few things from most important, to if you feel like it. We'll start with the file type that you are going to use. I always shoot in the RAW format, and if you are starting out and not to sure what that is go ahead and set it to RAW+JPEG and the larger the JPEG file size the better. Trust me on this one, you definitely want to go with the larger JPEG and the RAW and storage space is getting cheaper by the day. Now that you've secured your files future set the present, the date and time that is. It's the little things that make the difference. Starting out with just these few settings will get you on the right path. The last must would be to format your memory card in camera, and that goes for any memory card that you use going forward; just make sure you've copied all the goodness off of them first!
Needless to say there are tons of settings that you can tweak to your liking so that you can be the next best wedding, portrait, landscape, fine art, commercial, sports, fashion, automotive, concert, street, extreme, conceptual, still life, kids, wildlife, astro, underwater, sky diving, real estate, family photographer. As you become more familiar with your camera you will learn what works for you and what doesn't. Your style of shooting will change how you set up your camera. Take this photographic journey one step at a time and don't be afraid to make mistakes. But the one thing to keep in mind is to Shoot What You Love , Love What You Shoot