Buy a book – there are several DK books that explain how the camera works, how your lenses work, composition and post process. These typically also have projects that you can complete to hone your skill.

Don’t shoot on RAW unless you are au fait with post processing technique. Shoot on Large and Fine for now.

Consider taking a class. The Photocollege offers an intermediate course that introduces you to your camera and gets your shooting on Manual. This will elevate you from clueless to Guy With Camera status – you’ll be able to get the shot you want most of the time. You won’t be a professional tog yet, but you will be able to at least use your camera.

Point 1 is probably the best of the lot. Nothing beats hitting the road with a buddy who knows their way around the camera. Not only will you learn how to properly use the thing (P mode is not where you want to be BTW) but you’ll get a different perspective on what makes a good shot.

Having a digital camera is good and bad. As you say in point 2, shoot as much as you can. The problem with that is that when you get back and offload your images, you’ll have 500 dodgy shots and 1 good one. But you won’t know what you did different to get the good shot, especially of the camera is thinking for you in P mode. Start with one of the priority modes (shutter or aperture) as a jumping point into full manual. Having someone with you who knows how they work will help. Knowing how to compose and get the shot you want is far more satisfying than lucking into the shot.

Oh, and it may be a digital, but get some of your shots professionally (read: not a home photo printer with photo paper) printed. It really looks a lot better printed on 6×9″ matt :)

enjoy!

Agree with some, but also caveats:

* Points 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 – fair enough. There is no alternative to Photoshop. Really. Piss off GIMP weenies. Can you spell “warez”?

* RTFM. Let’s say that again. RTFM. Focus specifically on the sections on exposure and focus systems. If you don’t understand, read them again. Take test shots in the differnt modes to understand them. You don’t get exposure right and sharp focus, you don’t have a picture. End of story.

* Learn the habit of getting exposure, focus, shoot. Choose your exposure point, lock it. Choose your focus point. Lock it. Recompose and shoot. You can do this in one fast natural motion (select, AE lock, select, focus lock, compose, fire). You’ll be amazed how much your “got the picture” ratio improves.

* Shooting vast amounts of pics blindly just means you have thousands of shit pics, that take hours to go through and suck up storage space. It’s no different from film days — make your shots count. So take lots of pics, but not blindly.

* Change the battery one-handed? What ever for? Your battery will last about 1000 shots between charges.

* Lenses – good lenses are f**** expensive. IS (Image Stabilized) is nice (allows you to shoot in slightly less light) but a cheap crappy IS lens is still cheap and crappy.

* Learn to use white balance — the auto WB is a bit useless, but you can set modes (tingsten light, flourescent, cloudy, sunny, etc). It’s fast and easy to set.

* The built in flashes are pretty much useless for anything except simple fill-in and catch-lights. If you want to shoot in the dark, buy a Speedlite

* PRACTICE with it. Try different settings, see what they do, fiddle with it. If you don’t know how to do stuff quickly, you’ll miss shots desperately fiddling.