I'm looking at getting a 20D after Christmas (maybe they'll drop a little by then and be more available?).

I'm coming from the P&S world and my biggest reason for wanting to step up is for the manual focus.

I would like to spend some time learning some basics and this forum has helped me do that to a point through other people's questions, but I'm looking for some kind of a basics course maybe out there on some site (or multiple sites) that I can spend some time with and come away with things like:

on cloudy days you'll probably end up using ISO xxx and wanting an f stop of x.x or better

it's better to use a telephoto lens get closer to a flower than to stand real close with a normal lens (I'm not saying that's true, I'm looking to find out if it is...)

You get a more touchy depth of field with an xxx-xxx lens, and a more flat uniform one with an xxx-xxx lens.


Any thoughts on those questions would be great to start... but I'll take any number of sites out there to help me cut down the learning curve to being a photographer instead of just an idiot with a camera. *smile*

Side thought: In my world (system admin) I'd recommend a person looking to excel work on puting together their own setups at home to play with and spend lots of time online versus looking for any classes. Does that school of thought carry over to photography? Or would I be wise to look into at least a couple beginner classes at the local college?

Thanks in advance, this is only my second question here, but the first one went well and I've been pleased at the community so far.