Originally posted by rhonalou THanks a lot Chris, that's really helpful, my idea of composition is "oo that looks ok I'll shoot it"..
There is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of with this as a starting point.
It is then natural to become discouraged by the fact that nothing seems to look in the picture how you saw it (guess how I know).
So wrestle with that, and get on with the next step, which is to start thinking carefully about why this is.
Quote: I haven't really mastered getting the bits I want in focus to be in focus, and the bits I don't want, not to be
There are two parts to this.
The first is, focus on the thing you want sharp (one method for this is, using centre-spot focus point, point at the thing, half press to focus, then reframe).
The second is, use aperture to control
depth of field.*
Sadly, this requires more thinking and learning. But it's worth it
______________
* in that article, stop when you get to the scary maths. You don't need to know it. All you really need to know to get started is that the bigger the hole that the light gets in through (the smaller the F-number), the more blurry things that aren't at the precise focus distance will be. Then experiment with different apertures to get the effect you want.