The Beginners Questions Area

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No thats not me your thinking of Don89 he uses broncolour. i cant afford them at $7500 each ,but i do shoot dancers.

isnt it a pain you cant delete a post.

i was moderated because my posts where factual and it was viewed as not helping with equipment sales.
I like to think of arguments as aggressive and emotional , Im neither, and if you tell porkies , mislead or discuss tech that doesnt match the real world findings your in for a good debate i can guarantee it 😁😁

I think that's entirely reasonable, and anyone should be willing to learn genuinely beneficial information, but as far as the exposure "argument" goes I don't think the tone of some posts was especially helpful. There's coming across as keen to share knowledge, and there's coming across as keen to show off.

There are different levels of knowledge (I mean broadly correct knowledge), from initial broadbrush descriptions that fuzz some fine distinctions and knowledge, right down to foundations of science level of very subtle and delicate nuances.

When teaching, the teacher has to tailor the level of knowledge to the audience if they are to have any chance of being successful. You don't need a pre-cursor knowledge of quantum physics to be a photographic practitioner. It probably helps if you design imagers. Judging the level that is appropriate (and sticking to it!) is a fine art. It's probably very difficult for experts familiar with the nuances and subtleties to reel in their tendency to be precise and detailed and go with an alternative handwavy approximation for beginners. It's not necessarily showing off, these people are giving freely of their time and expertise, no need to take that for granted. But "reading the room" and finding a level of description that is both correct and comprehensible at first sight is tricky. That's why feedback from members of your intended audience is helpful in calibrating the difficulty level. It's my experience (as someone who was a professional content author/editor in a professional field I wasn't an expert in, writing for a general non-expert audience) it's quite difficult to judge it right without some external feedback.

I don't think you have to know how to design imagers to be a photographic practitioner.

I agree with the sentiment of the OP. However, DPReview had the same affliction.

Thanks, and the same to you.

I have even see t-shirts that suggest that.

I have often wondered why automatics took over the market here. Gas is cheap in comparison I guess, and we do have city traffic, but as sprawled as we can be here, you would think more manuals would be in favor. I have read that Gen Z like to reach back and embrace older tech, we have seen it with vinyl records and 20 your old compact cameras, but the same article said that manuals are on the uptick again for younger buyers where available. One of my friends 25 year old son is begging me to teach him to drive stick on my truck, and he is begging me because his dad doesn't know how to drive a stick. He is 55. Anyway, I would never buy a sedan with a manual these days because it can really kill the resale market. Why shrink the audience?

It used to be that manuals got better mileage. Not anymore.

It used to be that manuals were faster around a racecourse. Not anymore.

Manuals are still more fun. Especially when you get the heel and toed, double-clutched downshifts just right. But automatics these days match revs on downshifts.

Your avatar reminded me of this picture I took in 1968 at Laguna Seca of Bruce and Denny.

Probably the best way for a beginner to grasp the rudimentale of photography is to get one of those popular illustrated textbooks. Langford's Starting photography, or Basic Photography are two suggestions. At least the beginner gets a good overview, before asking specific questions on forums like this one.

Many of the concepts beginner needs are not actually correct like the infamous exposure triangle or the rule of thirds, but will get a novice on track to produce acceptably good pictures. Some will never move beyond this stage, but others will start to grasp the more complex truths concerning digital photography, both technical and as a visual language.

Are there no beginners’ guides that actually do explain those basic concepts correctly? Anyone?

Somebody just starting photography needs some very simple concepts to get them started. It does not matter if those concepts are not technically true. The truth can come a bit later. You can use the infamous triangle to get good results. They lean about the shutter seed aperture relationship and what effects aperture and shutter speed have on a picture.

Remember the dictionary entry for beginner is:

beginner
noun
UK /bɪˈɡɪn.ər/ US /bɪˈɡɪn.ɚ/

a person who is starting to do something or learn something for the first time:

Blinding a newcomer with science at the very start, will only serve to drive them away from the art of photography.

Blinding a newcomer with pseudo-science at the very start, on the other hand, ... LOL, really LOL. Infantilization all but won.

It is always a bad idea to start teaching with alternate facts.
Yes, we need simplicity in the beginning. That is best accomplished by not telling everything at once.