I picked up a Canon Rebel XSI cause I wanted to do portrait and action photography as a hobby. I also wanted to get into being able to take professional pictures for concert shows for different venues.. Any suggestions on developing my hobby and things I could practice to become a better photographer??

thats a great camera...for portraits i would suggest a prime canon lens..they make a 51mm 2.8 that is like really reasonably priced..60 bucks or so..that is nice for portraits.


i'd just mess around with depth of field/aperture combos and start shooting in RAW.

its a 50mm f1.8 and its about $80
pick up a book called "understanding exposure"
it's a great start...
o and keep shootin shootin shootin.

Xbox Live gamertag: ILLPOOFLINGER

- Work in RAW (personally I use Adobe's Lightroom). Working in jpeg or another compressed format is shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to post production.

- Try to visualize the picture before you shoot (as opposed to just shooting a lot and picking out what doesn't suck afterwards). This requires concentration and practice, but you will learn faster, and eventually you will simply make better pictures for it.

- Shop around for books by photographers that you like, for inspiration.
Don't be afraid to copy their work for your personal development.

- If you know any busy musicians personally, go with them when they hit the road, and shoot both their onstage and backstage activities. Much more interesting than just shooting onstage.

___________________
"So this is what everybody's always talking about! Diablo! If only I'd known. The beauty! The beauty!"

Nice.. I'm appreciating all the advice you guys are giving. If I could get good enough for bands to take me on as their photographer that would be awesome like just to shoot performance and that backstage life...but I'd also like to be able to do professional work for the fam and friends for those special occasions and for building personal photos too..