Conquering EOS fear

On Saturday I took myself off to the wilds of Cambridgeshire for a one-day course on mastering the digital EOS camera. This was module one in a three module series. When I arrived in the car park of what looked like a barn / cottagey type conversion, a few other people were still sitting in their cars waiting for the official registration start - not wanting to be the first in! That made me smile as did the instruction "you can get your cameras out," which led to various Canon EOS models being produced and surreptitious glances to see who had the red band denoting an L lens (expensive).

In fairly cramped conditions, 13 of us spent the day learning about the features of the EOS cameras. I learnt a huge amount and have been spouting it continuously over the weekend: "try daylight white balance for your sports shots when the light gets bad and take the ISO up to 1600, you won't lose much quality. And Raw is a waste of time," I said knowledgeably to the DH. I feel pretty confident now I know when to use the different modes (AV, TV, P, etc) and can move on from using the Auto setting and pic modes.

There was one unpleasant reminder of school, though. In common with most people in the room, I wasn't holding my camera properly. You have to place your left hand under the camera with your thumb on the left side. Well, I struggled with this, and in particular with turning the camera round. The instructor singled me out and kept urging me to hold it the way he was holding his, and it was a nasty flashback to school when the evil Mrs Thompson humiliated me in front of the class for my bad sewing. I felt like saying sod the camera and walking out, because no-one likes to feel a chump, and after that he kept checking that I was doing everything right, which grated because I was grasping things faster than some of the others.

But that aside, I will definitely sign up for module 2, taking control of the camera. Check out the courses here.