# Just got my first decent camera. Where to start?



## shinycard255 (Sep 15, 2011)

The 18-55 should work out just fine. Shoot at the smallest aperture you can (I'm using it's going to be f/5.6 fully extended). When taking shots of fish, try to always shoot at 55mm as well. Shooting anything wider won't work out too well. Also, don't be afraid to bump up the ISO to 800-1600 if need be. Try to shoot anything faster than 1/60th of a second for shutter speed.

Macro lenses are awesome. If you want to take some good photos of shrimps, you will most likely need a macro lens. Since you are shooting Canon, I recommend the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens. It's a killer lens that won't really set you back too far. I'd recommend getting a used one off of either B&H, KEH, or Adorama.

There are some good sites out there for beginners. I've been doing photography for some time now so all of it comes natural to me now, but look into photo.net or Strobist blog. You may also want to watch a few videos on YouTube from Adorama. They have some very nice tutorials and how-to's for cameras. They also give advice for beginner - advanced. I still watch their videos from time to time because there is so much to learn about photography.

Hope this helps you out. Also, feel free to ask questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them for you to the best of my knowledge


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## Bserve (Nov 4, 2012)

I say either the 60mm or 200mm f/2.8 USM would be good for what you're doing. And the 50D is also good for what you would use it for.


Sent from my BRAIN


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## Bserve (Nov 4, 2012)

My camera settings for my tank are usually around 1/200 shutter, f/13, ISO 6400, white balance 5300K when I use my 60mm macro


Sent from my BRAIN


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## dana (Dec 12, 2013)

Understanding Exposure by Peterson, Amazon has it:
Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera: Bryan Peterson: 0884798534707: Amazon.com: Books

Best beginners book out there. On your camera, the dial in the back control aperture, and the dial on top controls shutter speed in manual. 

The lens your brother sold you is the cheapest cannon lens available. Not very exciting. The macro 100 2.8 I completely recommend for what you are wanting to do. However it isn't cheap. A cheap alternative that will be way more limited but get you a nice depth of field range is the cheapo 50 mm 1.8 lens. The best learning lens, runs a little over a 100 new. Of course there are many better lenses out there, but i recommend this one to beginners while they are figuring out what they want to do with photography. Or learning how to use their camera. Your lens will make it very difficult to understand the relationship between shutter speed, aperture, and iso due to its limited aperture. 

I understand my camera, but am just figuring our my tank


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