How did you learn about photography?

[Sebastian]

Nothing can teach you more than shooting and learning from your mistakes.

[kkraczek]

Nothing can teach you more than shooting and learning from your mistakes.

True, but, I also am interested in basic things... like white balance- what is it? (saw that on the digi forum) I think I might sound totally silly if I posted to a thread with "what does that mean?" every time I saw a new term! Thanks Sebastian!

[mjm]

just picked up a camera and started shooting. i also took a couple classes in high school and college but i never got anything too great out of them.

reading a lot online (while at work, hehe) and shooting many pictures is what i am doign now.

[Sebastian]

True, but, I also am interested in basic things... like white balance- what is it? (saw that on the digi forum) I think I might sound totally silly if I posted to a thread with "what does that mean?" every time I saw a new term! Thanks Sebastian!

Ah, I see where you're coming from now.

Terminology is easy, that's not photography, the image is photography. A simple glossary will give you all the answers you need.

If you don't want to harass us with a bunch of "what's XXX mean?" questions, then just make a list and ask all of it at once.

White balance, BTW, is setting the sensor to reproduce solors without a color cast. Notice how indoor pictures always used to come out yellow? That's because film is mostly adjusted for daylight, and indoor lighting is much warmer than daylight, meaning it has more red/orange in it. You could use a filter or incandescent film to compensate, with digital you just recallibrate the sensor the the current light source, and voila, you have balanced colors.

Don't ever hesitate to ask basic questions, we have all been there, done that, and know how important it is to answer them for you.

[another view]

The thing about white balance is that your eye does it automatically. You don't notice that incandescent lights in your house look yellow or fluorescent light looks green, you just see the colors. White balance in concept isn't anything new to photography although the term is generally talked about in terms of digital photography. With film, you would use colored filters to change the light to match the film (where with digital you would change the camera to match the light). Not trying to get technical, hope it helps.

BTW, from your avatar I'd guess you're into nature photography. Check out Boyd Norton's book about nature photography, it was updated about two years ago.

Aside from that, shoot, shoot, shoot. And review your work critically. Looks good? How could you make it better? Don't beat yourself up over it too much, but try to learn from it.