Thursday, December 20, 2012

You Don't Know WHAT You Don't Know!

The real problem we all face when coming over from the film or point-and-shoot (P&S) world is a simple thing:

We do not know WHAT we do not know.

There is so much to learn when coming from the camera-does-it-all world, or the film world. White balance, RAW vs JPEG, postprocessing, workflow, Color spaces, histograms, software, etc. In the beginning, we know that we don't know, but we don't know WHAT we don't know. The only way to know what we don't know, is to be exposed to something new and realize we didn't know that. Only then do we know we didn't know that before. This may sound silly, but it's actually quite profound.

When I first started learning about the video standards in HD-SLR cameras, I had no idea what I didn't know, so I bought an extremely complex book for a lot of money so I could peer into what I don't know and figure out where to start. Once I did that, I started learning what I needed to learn right away, and added to it new things as I went along. Learning WHAT I didn't know, by looking through a book, helped me tremendously. The bottom line, if one has no idea something even exists, then one doesn't know WHAT one doesn't know.

Never be ashamed to hang it all out there in front of experienced people. They will look upon your plight with understanding, remembering the time that they didn't know WHAT they didn't know. Make mistakes, screw it up good. Post your errors. Only then  will you learn WHAT you need to learn.

Once you've learned the new things you must now learn, you will be way ahead of the game.  All of us went through this. No matter our backgrounds, we all haven't the foggiest idea of what we need to learn first, until someone helps us. If you are in a position to help a newbie. Do it! Someone helped you, you weren't born with the knowledge you have now. You know WHAT the new shooter doesn't know. Help ease the transition!

Keep on capturing time...
Darrell Young