I recently bought a 35mm film SLR to learn different aspects of photography on it. (I know technically a DSLR would have been easier to learn on, but they're too expensive for me right now) I haven't received it yet (online order, hopefully it comes as described) but what would you guys recommend I do first? Also, what cameras do you guys have, and do you have any stories to share?

When I saw SLR I thought you were talking about the car :sadvaultboy:

When I first got my camera I just experimented with it a lot. Photograph anything that's interesting or peculiar and then twist it in Photoshop You usually get pretty cool photos that way.

Heh, yeah, that's what I'm planning to do in the beginning. Just start photographing anything interesting. Actually, I have another question. I bought a Canon AE-1, is that a good camera to start out?

I just googled Canon AE-1 review and the first site had a 4.63 rating out of 5 so I guess so Besides you can't really go wrong with Canon, even if it was their worst product it would probably still be average when in comparison to others :shrug:

I've got a 20 year old SLR, similar kind of film. I reccomend taking some simplistic shots first to get you used to assembling an image. As an example, you could take a picture where a third of the vertical space is a tree, another third is a person, and another third is void. Imagine your photo as being separated into 3 columns and 3 rows,forming a total of 9 boxes of the same shape.

Also, try experimenting by taking pictures of edges and line-like objects. (tree branches, limbs, etc.) Try to get an impression of how lines guide your eye when viewing a photo and how you can assemble an image with a focus on driving the viewer's attention through the photo through lines.

For nature photography, Try planting a subject object (like a plastic toy bug) into a tree or bush, so you can get some practice with taking pictures when dealing with plants and the like without having to deal with a living subject.

For landscape objects, remember lines again. The Top of trees form a line, the horizon forms a line, the crest of a hill forms a line, houses form a line, everything forms lines. Those lines will guide the viewers persepctive, so as an exercise, pick out a subject (like a house, or tree) you want the viewer to notice, and try to take a picture that will guide the viewer's eyes to that subject.

Thanks for the advice. I was taught the 3 row 3 column thing in my Film class (I'm a film student, high school) so luckily I'm not a complete newbie in shot composition. If it wasn't for my film class I would've never got into cameras :tongue:

Canon's QA has often been terrible in recent years; even their L range is no longer a guarantee of quality. I'm kind of locked into their system now but if I were starting again I'd look elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong, when their stuff is good it's very good, but there's a bit too much randomness to it for my liking.

Ah, Good to hear. Another thing you can try doing is looking at books of poses and the like. It could help you get inspiration for poses to use when photographing people. Also, when taking nature photos, pant's legs go in socks.

Ha, good advice. :biggrin:

I shoot with a Nikon D70 Digital SLR. It was an amazing camera for its time and it still holds up today.

I recently bought a telephoto lens...but i'm seriously regretting the buy. Im actually going to pick up a 50mm 1.8 Nikon lens on Wednesday.

In regards to your film camera purchase, most film mediums have been reduced to just the one tungsten film type (in Canada at least). This is due to film cameras becoming totally obsolete in comparison to digital slrs. If you're just starting out, it'd be worth it to buy a ditigal slr just for the sake of learning. If i'm messing around with different exposure settings, and shutter speeds and I take a crappy picture I can just delete it and shoot again.

The only place I know of that develops photos is Costco...Make sure you ask for a photo cd, so you have digital files... It seems like too much work to me...especially if half the pictures you paid for are just white or black...or blurry..etc..

I think you'll pay for it in film in the end.

My reason for choosing film is because of the cheap start-up. I know I'll pay the equivalent price in film but I'd rather pay as I go than pay it all at once, that's my thinking anyway. I know for sure that there is color film where I live, and I know there are at least one or two places that develop photos around here. Eventually film will become obsolete though, though it's not dead yet.

I reccomend reading up on ASI/ISO, F-stops, differing types of film and their purpose, filters, lighting, and different lenses, and finally, development procedures. Then go on to stuff like composition. Film is quite a different media than digital. It is unforgiving. You need to know how to use your SLR camera thoroughly before wasting film.