so many questions from new but enthusiastic photographer!

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ok, i have a number of questions i would really love answered...but first, an introduction maybe?

ok, i have never taken any sort of official photography lesson, but im a good photographer in general. i go away with friends on trips and take photos of their days out for them.
my current camera is a Canon Powershot S2 IS, and im very happy with it. i dont have any 'toys' to go with it, just the camera and memory card.
the only pictures i take at the moment are outdoors type photos, generally action ones- myself and a lot of friends compete on horses, and its the only sort of photography subject i really love- so most of my photo taking is spent trying to catch horses on the move and jumping.
occasionally, they compete indoors, with poor lighting where no flash is allowed. this is a problem, as i will explain below.
also, as much as i would LOVE to get to grips with it, i have no understanding of photoshop.

ok, questions-

1. can i teach myself photo shop? does it have an intstruction manual?? i would love to edit my photos, but i dont even get so far as uploading them before photoshop has freaked me out :/

2. when taking these action shots indoors, hindering me i have:
no option to use flash (its not allowed)
poor light
many objects getting in the way when im trying to focus a shot

so, is there any setting on the camera i can use? ive tried the obvious ones, even the 'night' setting but to no avail. how can i take good action photos in this sort of environment?

3. if i am to take photography seriously, and actually let myself be ''hired out'' by friends for the day, what extra photography equipment will i need? a bigger memory card, sure (mines only 1gb) but printing equip? framing? i have put all photos on disk for people in the past, and printed out a couple.. but they didn t come out great at all, and im not sure whether it was the printer (which is relatively new and uptodate, bout 2 years old?) or the printing paper (some printing paper i picked up from a local newsagent). and i could use a new lens for extra zooooom i think, but will that work for my camera?

i think thats it for the moment.. sorry if some of these questions seem ridiculous, im really just starting out!
 
1. Yes. Im entirely self taught when it comes to Photoshop, although I have been using it for over a decade now. The main thing you need to get your head around in Photoshop is the use of Layers. I won't go int oit here however as there is a VAST amount of help and tutorials out there for all levels of user. And yes it comes with a manual. However you might want to try a demo first, as a full version of it is quite expensive. Another option you might want to try is Adobe Lightroom. Its a new product from Adobe that has been designed entirely for photography. I love it, and its very easy and intuative to get to grips with.

2. I'll leave this one for people with a bit more knowledge on the subject. (But afaik, you want to turn the ISO up, so as to have well exposed shots, but still retain decent shutter speeds)

3. You could get a printer and start doing it all yourself. This however might get a bit expensive with ink/paper etc. You might want to consider using professional printing websites to do it for you, allowing you to concentrate on the Photography and editing. And again i'll leave the lens question to those more in the know. Hope that helps :)
 
Quick reply as I'm busy at work right this second but...

1) Search the internet for photoshop tutorials, it will get you covered from basics to advanceed stuff.

2) High ISO and large apperture lens is what you need for low light stuff.

3) Make sure your printer, screen and paper you use are all colobrated to each other. Or at least make sure you use photopaper and set the printer up for that specific paper. Takes lots of trial and error.
I'd use an online place and just upload your files for printing myself.
 
1) I would try not to use photoshop or any other packages if you can help it. While they are great tools lots of people seem to take poor photos these day then spend hours improving them in photoshop. It generally quicker to take a good photo in the first place rather than try and correct it afterwards.

2) As mentioned before you need to up the ISO but your camera probably is alreading doing this for you. You may just need a better camera/lens combo.

3) If you are seriously going to start selling photo then you will probably want to get a digital SLR in the future. Primary benfits of an SLR is the flexability to add different lens, larger sensor size which will result in better images and less noise when you up the ISO levels. With regards to printing your own photos i wouldn't bother use a professional company.
 
Geffen said:
1) I would try not to use photoshop or any other packages if you can help it. While they are great tools lots of people seem to take poor photos these day then spend hours improving them in photoshop. It generally quicker to take a good photo in the first place rather than try and correct it afterwards.
Click to expand...
True to an extent, but most photos benifit from some tweaking - the less you need to do the better of course but its well worth learning photoshop in this day and age.
 
I'm not sure that is a focusing issue, it looks like you used a to slow shutter speed. The photo was taken at a 10th of second. That probably too slow to avoid hand shake resulting in a blurry image and far to slow to freeze the horse. I would probably aim for around 250th to 500th of second to freeze the image properly. . If upping the ISO or opening up the aperture isn't an option to achieve this then you may need to look at a new camera.
 
1 )

yeah you can teach yourself photoshop, it has its inbuilt tutorial mode, there are websites online that teach you little tricks, varios photgraphy monthly magazines have little tutorials that can teach you a lot of little tips (I find Digitial Photo very good, at £4.99 a month)


2) as others have said, you really need a camera that lets you set your own shutter speed and aperature(does your camera have a manual mode ?). in low light the easy solution, is use a tripod and slow shutter speeds and low Fnumbers. Of course as you have seen with that Photo of the horse, if there is any movement you need a fast shutter speed.

A good general tutorial site is http://www.morguefile.com/archive/classroom.php

3) in all honesty the cheapest option is probably to use an online printing company. www.photobox.co.uk is widly considered to be the best one out there, and they offer 30 free prints (6x4) as a joining incentive, which is certainly enough to see if you like their colour and print quality


in conclusion, you have made a good start by asking the questions here, there are some great guys (and ladies) on here, and some very knowlegable(SP) people here
 
I have no idea about the available setting on the camera. But ideally for low light you want the widest aperture available (the lowest f number, low f number = wide aperture), a resonably fast shutter speed (at least 125th of a second, probably 250th+), and you will need to use a high ISO most likely, try as high as the camera will go. This will create 'noise' (kind of like static in the image to look at!) but thems the breaks.
Try reading the instructions and messing about with the camera in 'M' mode until you feel comfortable adjusting these settings to the point where you can correctly expose not only for the horse, but for the entire scene whilst still retaining a fast shutter speed (presuming hat it has an 'M' mode. 'M' mode will be full manual, and should let you change all of the settings).
Realistically though, you might well need to be looking at upgrading your camera and purchasing a decent lens suitable for low light.
 
Although the S2 has a f/2.7-3.5 lens its max ISO is 400 and thats your problem. The camera simply can't use a fast enough shutter speed in low light conditions without the flash. Unfortunately to reproduce the similar functions of the S2 in a DSLR is going to be expensive. But the outcome is going to be far better. I don't know much about Canon gear, so i'll stick to recommending Nikon.

On a budget your probably looking at about £750 (Nikon D40/D50, 18-55mm Kit lens, and the Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 APO HSM).

If your seriously getting into photography and are going to make some money from it, then some more professional equipment might be an option. This is going to offer, better low light performance, better noise handling, and over all quality. Something like a Nikon D200, Nikon AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8 and the Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII will set you back about £2400
 
Or depending on how close you are to the action, you could get a girly Canon 350D with a 50mm f/1.8 prime (that's a 'fast' lens) plus the standard one for around £400...on eBay

(canon are better than Nikon by the way ;))


*edit*

Completely forgot about OcUK camera sales...linky removed.
 
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