[KarenAmelia]

This is an awesome website!! I know it will be a valuable resource, but I also want to find a class, free or paid, that I can use to help me incrementally learn to use my new K5 IIS. It is way too complicated for me to just plunge in all at once, and a class or tutorial would be so helpful. I miss the relative simplicity of the old film SLRs, but choosing digital over film is a no-brainer for me! Have been using a very user friendly point and shoot compact digital till now, largely to avoid the learning curve of DSLR cameras but now am ready to take the plunge.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Happy Thanksgiving. -Karen

[arkav]

I miss the relative simplicity of the old film SLRs,

Assuming you mean the old manual film SLRs like the K1000, then you can theoretically use your K5 in a similar fashion. If you set your mode dial to M, then you can set your F stop and Shutter speed with the front and back wheels ( I think you can configure which one controls which function via the menus ). You can set your ISO manually, just as you would on an old film SLR. White balance is something you would not have had access to in a film camera - either set it according to your lighting conditions or leave it on auto.

Turn off auto-focus via the switch on the front of the camera if you want to manually focus, but the focus screen won't be as good for that as the split prism focus screens they had in the old film cameras. From there, you can enable as little or as much automation as you like or are comfortable with. Set yourself a target of learning one new option per week ( or per day ).

There are obscure options/functions that to this day I do not know how to use on my own DSLRs. Every once in a while, somebody mentions something I was unaware of in a forum posting and if it sounds interesting or useful, I give it a try.

And the nice thing about your DSLR is that you don't have to wait to get your film processed - you can instantly check to see what effect the settings you selected had on the image. Flubbed shots don't cost you anything.

You don't have to jump into the deep end day one.

[csa]

Welcome to the Pentax forums! I would suggest (for now), setting your camera on "P", and letting it make the decisions for you. Then all you have to do is press the shutter. You should have the manual. I recently got my Pentax, and I'm simply taking a few pages of the manual at a time, to understand the functions. Slow, yes; however one can always skip to a section that they have immediate interest in.

[neil1]

There is lots of youtube video out there,

[Just1MoreDave]

These are good according to my sister. She asked me the same question and this was my only idea:

</title> <meta name="description" content="Adorama TV, the best photo and video advice from AdoramaTV's All-Star Cast" /> <link rel="canonical" href='http://www.adorama.com/ALC/category/AdoramaTV' /> <script type="text/javascript" src="/ALC/combres.a

I started like arkav suggests. Get the camera to act like a film camera and use it that way for a while. Then you learn something about the camera while staying with something familiar. It is not necessary to master every spot on the mode dial after that. Just have some idea when those modes are useful.

I think it helps to tackle a specific photo idea early on. An example may be "a decent shot of my dog". Take some shots and criticize them yourself. Fix stuff you did wrong. Look at other people's dog shots to steal ideas and try to imitate them. While pursuing your shot, you might try camera features you haven't learned yet, like setting white balance. I learned an awful lot trying to take shots of stuff to sell on eBay.

[kylewis]

This is an awesome website!! I know it will be a valuable resource, but I also want to find a class, free or paid, that I can use to help me incrementally learn to use my new K5 IIS. It is way too complicated for me to just plunge in all at once, and a class or tutorial would be so helpful. I miss the relative simplicity of the old film SLRs, but choosing digital over film is a no-brainer for me! Have been using a very user friendly point and shoot compact digital till now, largely to avoid the learning curve of DSLR cameras but now am ready to take the plunge.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Happy Thanksgiving. -Karen

Hi karen, i haven taken classes online At Lynda.com @ google Ben Long he has several tutorials and they are extremely easy to understand with great examples he goes throught aperture setting shutter speed ISO all the options available on DSLR.

[hjoseph7]

The K-5 IIs manual is pretty good. Although you might skip the things you think you don't really need, until later you find out you really needed them ?

[MyTZuS]

Here's a link to an interactive pdf from Adorama that was posted by nofilmschool: http://www.snapfactory.com/startchart/where-to-start-chart.pdf

Gives you a start button and a flow chart with each button being interactive. Pretty niffty. Also, nofilmschool.com is an excellent resource for learning the craft of film making & photography.

[r0ckstarr]

Find a book called "Understanding Exposure". Read that, and it will no longer seem complicated.

[Oldbayrunner]

As mentioned both Adorama and B & H have excellent Youtube videos. For new dslr users I like this gentlemans. https://www.youtube.com/user/photoexposed/playlists