Originally published at Welcome To The Dollhouse. You can comment here or there.

t’s been kinda funny getting into a hobby when you are an old, reformed-perfectionist, Type-A nutbar recovering from chronic insecurity. On one hand, you are totally jazzed when you find that you understand another concept or (as they like to say at my job) new learning. Yet that low self-esteem, you’re really a moron incapable of any real skill part of your psyche inevitably returns to shriek loudly that all you’re doing is fooling yourself. You might have gotten a little better, but you’ll never be any good! It’s such a lovely do-si-do to experience: watching your esteem travel from sanity to insanity and back again.

In order to foster my learnings (and receive needed validation when the crazies attack) I visit various beginner friendly photography boards on this here Interweb. And there, my friends, is when I find myself making the rapid trip from overconfident asshat to discombobulated prat in the short space of an f-stop or two.

Not long after starting my Oh Shoot course at Jessica Sprague (and armed with some dangerous new knowledge), I visited the D40/D60 forum at the Nikonians (one of my new hangouts). There I recent poster was writing to complain about something being wrong with his lens.

Something must be wrong with my lens because all my photos keep coming out grainy. I thought I was using a decent lens, but I guess I need to go ahead and buy a new one in order to get better photos.

I saw this and immediately I was like that annoying know-it-all kid who sat in the front of the class and was afflicted with immediate hand-raising disease. You know the one (generally female) whose hand would shoot up before the teacher could even finish the question. I know, I know! I thought. It’s not the lens. It has something to do with your ISO. Psychic back patting ensued as I went on to read the answer.

“Stop shooting in landscape mode because the camera will push up the ISO settings. Use aperture priority and a basic f-stop of f/8 or f/11 and see what happens with your shots,” read the reply.

I flew out of our home office to share my clear and obvious ability to learn (as evidenced by my quick discernment of this guy’s issue) with AdoringHusband. Thoughts of I’m not stupid danced in my head. AdoringHusband was also happy for me. (He’s been right tickled that his Christmas present has been the impetus for such a passionate hobby.) He let me preen for a little bit, then he asked the (now apparently) glaringly obvious question, “Why does landscape mode increase the ISO?”

And there, faster than a speeding bullet, came STUPID flying right smack into my forehead.

“Uh, I have no idea.” I could see why the camera would want to stop down for a sharper picture with greater depth of field in landscape mode, but why it would choose to adjust the ISO instead of the shutter speed? I couldn’t even come up with a theory. Crap! I must have looked so crestfallen that he didn’t even ask me any follow-up questions as I slunk back to the office, tail between my legs.

It’s been like that ever since. Get confident (or cocky) for even a hot minute and next thing you know, you get hit with flying STUPID once again.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a posting on Nikonians that made me want to LOL if I were the type to LOL at someone’s cluelessness (and I’m really not that type).

Speaking of the flash, I was playing around with my new 70-300 today and noticed when I turned the flash off and went to take a picture there was a delay of about 1 sec from me pressing the button to the shutter closing. I don’t really understand that.. I’m not sure how I’m going to take any pictures at night with that delay.. anyone have an idea?

At this point, the smug asshat is lurking, thinking, he doesn’t get that turning off the flash reduces the available light for taking the picture so the shutter is compensating. Man, that is basic stuff! Like I said, I’m not the type to LOL, but were I, that might have warranted a chuckle. Happily, unlike many photography boards, Nikonians is actually pretty nice to newbies.

Once, on another major board in the beginner forum, a newbie to DSLRs posed a question soliciting opinions on three DSLR options he had been considering. The very helpful <insert eyeroll here> reply from a non-beginner was, “Considering that only one of the three cameras you are asking about has been released, clearly you are too ignorant to even be considering purchasing a DSLR.” Yikes!

So my friend with the shutter delay got a decent answer from the Nikonians, explaining the exposure triad and such. One person did suggest the commonly suggested reference Understanding Exposure for his edumacation:

(And yes, I have purchased the book along with a bunch of Scott Kelby books. I have quite the reference library.)

Then I go visit the peeps at Jessica Sprague where I am taking Candice Stringham’s portraiture class. I’m reading the forum message boards and see a post entitled Not Always Going for Tack? Before I click to see what the chicks are talking about, I’m thinking to myself, did she mean tact? And what would that have to do with taking portraits?

I start to read the entry and realize that once again, I’m taking a rapid trip down to Pratville.

I used a wide aperture (f/2.2) on many shots to get some bokeh in the background, but wider apertures sort of by nature are not tack sharp . . . at least not with my 50 mm lens, BUT they are not “unsharp” if that makes sense and I think they look nice. But for some reason, I am hung up on faces being tack. And only if you zoom in can you tell they are not. But many of these have a softer look (they are not blurry). Any thoughts on this? I like them, but at the same time, my photographer’s eye wants tack, especially in the face. How should we deal with the aperture/sharpness trade off? I would love to hear your input.

Hmm, my input, she asks? Well that would be, what the freak are you talking about?!! Geez Louise, I just learned what bokeh was (though I still don’t think I would be able to distinguish nice bokeh from ugly bokeh) and now we are talking about wanting tack?! What tack? A thumbtack to hold up your photos? I think not.

I chose to do what I do best: STFU and read on. There was more discussion on the best aperture of the lens (2 stops from the minimum f/stop, according to what I read) and how narrow the depth of field can be with particular focal lengths, aperture settings and the difficulty in getting people right to that tack sharpness point when taking the picture. My head started to throb as my abject lack of even one clue was laid bare before my eyes.

Find another discussion, I thought desperately. Something else…anything else!

What did I then click on? A very busy discussion of the difficulty people have had getting their 5-in-1 reflector to refold back into the cover bag. That would be the 5-in-1 reflector that I still had not unfurled. It sits behind me waiting for me to find someone willing to be my portrait victim. But it seems that refurling this item was a major production. Major! Videos were found to assist in this learning. Videos!! My head was about to explode.

Time to back away from the computer, lest my feeling of bewildered pratfulness become permanent.

The truth is that I’ve learned a ton in a few short months. My pictures have gone from this:

to this:

I’m able to participate in photography discussions for the most part without complete WTF are they talking about puzzlement (generally…that tack thing caught me off guard, really). I even found a new place to dish: Clickinmoms. (Yes, generally I am allergic to anything that has “mom” in its title, but I gave this place a pass.) I can do basic edits in Photoshop, Elements or my favorite, Lightroom. I know now that my monitor needs calibrating and do it weekly with ColorMunki Create. I shoot in RAW like a big girl. And I’ve got good glass (lenses) with hopefully the addition of a nice portrait macro for my birthday on Thursday, along with my BaLens 52mm Snap Cap White Balance & Exposure System. (I give AdoringHusband a pretty specific wish list for gift-giving occasions, lest I end up with a desk lamp or a deluxe shower squeegee. I kid…he would never give me such gifts because I just might hurt him if he did.) I even bought some Photoshop actions from Mindy and have cool TracyJoy accessories (camera bag, straps and lens bags).

For a few months of effort, I’m doing pretty damn well. I’m no smug asshat but not quite simpleminded prat either. I’m getting there.

Sorry that I’ve been so MIA. It’s been a busy few weeks.