Meghan

Action shots? Bright colors like sunsets? Low light situations? I just got a new Nikon DLSR and theres so many settings on it. I want to get good at taking nice pictures but dont have any plans to be a professional photographer or do it for money.

Stocker

Any modern Nikon (or Canon) DSLR is capable of making better pictures than a new owner knows how to make. Every shot is different, and every situation is different. Get good at indoor stills and you might find out you need practice with football games. Get good at birds and you might be scratching your head at a birthday party. If you don't get at least a general grasp of what all the different controls do, you will continue to wish you knew what you were doing. The learning curve is as steep as you want to make it but there is a lot to know!

1. Read some basic camera introduction stuff online
   
2. Skim the manual for your camera
   
3. Make a couple hundred pictures
   
4. Repeat
   

As I have said to other members here who were trying to get their pictures just-so for photo contests on this site: Making pictures is easy until you care how they come out. When you have time to fiddle with settings, and you see something that you want to look just-so in your picture, mess with the settings until it looks on the camera screen like you want it to look. Take lots of pictures. Break out the manual. KEY is paying attention to what settings do what to the image.



If you have a couple hundred dollars to spend, or you can possibly manage to scratch them together to spend, either get one of these or one of these depending on which sensor size you've got (DX or FX). You will never regret having one of these fast primes on your camera once you learn how to use it.



Because I find most wymyn love babies and flowers, here are a couple of reasons (from my own camera) to get a fast prime lens:

Baby pictures

Bird & flower pictures

Visionz

Theres a TON of Nikon camera courses you can take also. Either free online ones, super cheap 1-day college courses, or even community education classes. I took one for my Nikon and it was well worth the $40 for the 4 hour intro class. It taught me alot about my camera, troubleshooting, how to shoot in different lighting, and my photography skills improved drastically. Im in no way shape or form a professional, but my pics are way better now than before the class.

Stocker

Also an excellent idea. If you have half a clue how to use your equipment before taking a class, you will get more out of the class.