[xnicolo]

I'm new here, so I'm a little late to this party, but I thought I'd chime in on this.

1.) Offer to shoot anyone. The blander, the better. Focus on making them look good and / or interesting. Tell a story with the photo you shot of them... if they're so bland that their appearance doesn't really tell one, invent one.

2.) The technical stuff is great to know, but it's not the end all and be all of photography. Study photographers and artists. Study lots and lots of them. Pick a handful that you like and copy them until you can nail their look. Then evolve it into your own. I was taking paid jobs for magazines and shooting with them with the 18-55 kit lens that came with my K10D. I did this for about 2 years.

3.) You can shoot a more amazing picture with a $5 disposable camera than a $40,000 Hasselblad.

[northcoastgreg]

1. Don't waste your talent shooting with mediocre glass

2. Color rendition and microcontrast are more important in a lens than measured resolution

3. Pentax makes great glass. If you're shooting with Pentax cameras, take advantage of it

[doggydude]

1 - buying art IS cheaper than taking your own pictures and blowing them up for your walls...

2 - that there would be a need now for a site that offers unlimited uploads, no hot linking issues and reliability to store images online - because I would have built that site and retired by now.

3 - buying gear is an endless cycle - new model just get exponentially better - only curve I'm ahead of now is on owning great glass.

[Tonto]

1- If your have an interest in Photography DO IT, ....NOW! Its not as expensive/difficult as you may think, you are only delaying your enjoyment!
2- Get a SLR/DSLR as soon as you can.Get a cheap (2nd hand) body initially untill you know what features you need, I got lucky with my K7.
3- A great first lens pairing is a superzoom and a fast 50 (man focus), you learn so much about what you actually shoot and will always have a need for these two lenses, not so much twin lens kits.

[JenniferLeigh]

Great thread idea I can only think of 2 right now....

1. Keep your negatives safe! I lost all my b&w negatives from my trip to Paris from water damage, so in the film days; this meant a small water/fire proof safe. Today, this means digital backups, when I first started in digital photography I was clueless when it came to backing up my data. Luckily I have most of my photos, but I have lost some good ones along the way; including the raw file of my all time favourite photo.

2. Take your time. Getting started on digital, I would snap like a madwomen. I figured it would improve my chances of getting the shot, but in reality it made me careless. When I started slowing down, thinking about my shot and taking only 1 or 2 photographs; my photography improved dramatically. As a bonus, less pictures to process

[BobbyA]

Take your time. Getting started on digital, I would snap like a madwomen. I figured it would improve my chances of getting the shot, but in reality it made me careless. When I started slowing down, thinking about my shot and taking only 1 or 2 photographs; my photography improved dramatically. As a bonus, less pictures to process

Great point here. I have slowed down alot and now carefully prepare my shots as if using film and I see my work improving.

[stills999]

1. Off-camera lighting (such as bounce flash) can help immensely.
2. Wish I had I wide angle lens for my first and only vacation to Europe ... at the time I only had lenses from my film camera.
3. Wish I hadn't let my lens collection collect dust for years while I was waiting for DSLR prices to come down.

[dizon_dx]

1) Photography can change lives
2) I won't buy China filters with out trying them first. Or lets say won't buy products without trying them first -_-
3) Hope that I have my prime lens soon . Still in a no budget so I'm trying to find SMC Pentax-M 50mm F1.4

[kaiserz]

1)Awesome lens (Doesn't have to be expensive, the M/A 50 1.7 is a great example of an awesome lens for $)
2) Shoot RAW
3) Awesome software like lightroom
3.5) YouTube videos

[filorp]

1) Your means is: light, depth of field, perspective given by the lens (not the equipment)
2) Spend the money on a workshops (not on the equipment)
3) Focus on the frame (not on the equipment - don't become just the gatherer with LBA)

[HSV]

1. Where are the LBA rehab institutions? LBA anonymous? I need a cure for this!
2. The importance of composition, light, and lenses...the camera body is not so important.
3. Try to study photography more like a form of art and don't get excessively carried away with technical stuff (ultimate sharpness, resolution, distortion, FPS, etc.)

[jbuck92]

3. Try to study photography more like a form of art and don't get excessively carried away with technical stuff (ultimate sharpness, resolution, distortion, FPS, etc.)

Quoting to reiterate this! Do it because you enjoy it. If you love the way a picture turned out, does it really matter if someone else has an opinion of "It's a little blurred around the corners" or "Move the subject just a tad more to the left!"? No! If you love the picture and it's one that YOU would want on your wall because you love it that much, then don't let some minor technicality get in the way of that.