That 55-200 will be your best friend on the golf course.
I really enjoyed the challenge of starting with no knowledge of photography and getting somewhat decent at it, just with research and self taught.
I would start researching what aperture, shutter speed, and ISO is. Learn how those three work together and get that. Once you understand the technical side of that, then you can be creative and set up shots. Rule of 1/3rds is another good thing to understand when framing.
As for editing, I think Nikon comes with a RAW software that you can do some basic editing in without having to pay for it, but don’t quote me on that. Other than that, Adobe Lightroom is a popular one, I use Capture One and like it pretty good. Affinity Photo is another free one I’ve heard about, but know nothing about it.
Set it to Av (aka aperature priority mode). Set everything else to Auto. Set the types of images to jpeg initially. Later on you can shoot raw (which will allow you to do all sorts of edits in Lightroom). For bright landscape scenes you can set your aperature at anything you want really. If you want a wide depth of field where everything from the foreground to the background is in focus set your aperature at 8 and above. For portraits where you want a blurred background, set your aperature at the lowest possible. Shooting golf courses, mix it up with every type of shot, wide angle for wide landscape scenes, telephoto so 100mm or more for green complexes (it has the effect of compressing the scene and exaggerating contours eg front and back bunkers will look like they’re right on top of one another). For portraits shoot at 70mm or more to avoid your subject’s nose being distorted/too wide. Initially, break landscape scenes into thirds. Then muck around with different angles and perspectives. Once you are confident with aperature priority you can experiment with shutter priority and manual. Shutter priority/ manual can be helpful with scenes at night or in darker rooms.
High school digital photography teacher here. Feel free to send any newbie questions my way- happy to help out (promise to not treat you like a punk kid). Might even be able to make some of my curriculum available if that’d be helpful. Tons of photography-learning videos on YouTube, but you’re getting some good advice here already. Exposure triangle is a fundamental. Av is a good way to go, Lightroom is awesome, golf courses tend to shine more zoomed in to compress the distance. Play around with layering your composition to have multiple interest points in the fore, mid, and background, etc. Shoot in RAW. Use autofocus and choose your focal point closer to you rather in than far away if you want a lot in focus. Try shooting around f12-16 if you want a lot in focus. IDK- that’s a lot. Post your shots and ask for feedback! Happy shooting!
I’ve dabbled with landscape photography for few years now as a hobby. Best advice I have is get out there and try it and learn about editing as that is where the magic happens in most cases.
Nick Page is one of my favorite photographers and he has some helpful Youtube videos.
Here’s 3 of my personal favorites that I’ve taken over the years:
OK so I got a question on landscape (especially golf courses) and lenses. Background, I know only just a little about how this all works, and very much consider myself a beginner getting back into after about a 15 year hiatus from a camera other than my phone.
I have the Fuji T30 II (gang gang @jsg_nado) with a wildly versatile 18-135mm lens that I think is perfect first lens for me now to travel with one small camera and one small lens and offer a ton of variety. Howeva – 27mm isn’t the wide angle effect I’m looking for on these landscape shots, so my question is as follows–because I’m not a professional and this is mostly for me and for now at least I don’t want to buy another camera of the full frame variety, how low do I need to go?
The real question is basically what am I giving up in the 12-14mm range versus 15mm, because the 8-16mm is a red badge and obviously about twice the price of the 10-24. I don’t know a ton about this stuff obviously because I have no clue if those 3mm are worth it. I’m happy to pay up if so, but don’t want to be wasteful if the answer is no under any circumstances. TYIA
PS I realize on these ASP-C sensors most purists would ask, why on earth would you be shooting landscapes non full frame… but alas, i love my t30 ii
PPS, I have considered a prime, but i love being able to adjust framing with a zoom because often I am shooting and playing so don’t always have time to be changing my positioning as much as one would like to. In the long run I might consider a prime that I have for when I’m solely shooting, but for now I def want some sort of wide angle zoom.
So one question I had for all the cali kids who go to school in unreal areas (looking at you UCSB), how the f do you ever get anything done??? I’d never go inside
Buy used. The lenses will be much cheaper. The 10-24mm is £389 used here in the U.K. If you can’t find a good model used, and you want super wide ie 14mm and less, then I’d go for the widest prime you can find whether from Fuji, Tokina etc
I would go with the 10-24mm. Unless you really want to pay the extra money for the 8-16, but I don’t think you’ll miss the 2mm on the wide end and would appreciate the extra 8mm on the zoom end a lot more.
Many photographers I’ve researched when buying the wide angle love the 10-24 so I was very comfortable going that route. The 8-16 is also much heavier, which you may not want to carry around with you while golfing
That’s why I’m thinking the 10-24mm should be perfect for me since it would be 15-36mm on my x t 30. Thank you. This is exactly what I needed confirmation on. That lower end really isn’t all that necessary, especially factoring in cost.
I didn’t go to UCSD, just live nearby. My wife is a UCSD grad and she said having bad imposter syndrome and anxiety about flunking is good motivation to stay inside and study
UCSD is a notoriously boring school as well. It’s nickname is “UC Socially Dead”
If you’re ballin’ on a budget like most of us - go this route. It’s less expensive high-quality glass, which means you can just go buy more lenses with the money you save.
late to the party on this reply but for online courses on shooting, editing and everyhting else I have always recommended the Kelbyone site and its library of videos. everything from getting started to full studio shooting and editing