I bought a second hand camera

[slimwilly]

Yes, so I broke my Samsung pocket camera,2 years old,£80, it did the job but I have seen some amazing pictures on here so I found a six year old camera on Ebay and bought it.Its not a brilliant camera but it is a good one,Leicia lens,Panasonic.
So I will put some of the pics  below, I have messed up so far becausei have used auto mode and scene mode and others then copied them to the computer but I don't know what settings I used, so I will have to log them.
 

Details camera

camera

Details brucesplash

brucesplash

Details bruce slash 2

bruce slash 2

                          Bruce my German short haired pointer,my  gundog comes with me everywhere, he loves water.
Comments , advice,help accepted, thanks

[slimwilly]

Details bruce splash3

bruce splash3

Details bruce splash 4

bruce splash 4

[slimwilly]

It also has a 12x zoom, here are the results
 

Details truck no zoom

truck no zoom

And 12 x zoom

Details truck zoom

truck zoom

[slimwilly]

Details scene 1

scene 1

Details scene2

scene2

Details scene3

scene3

[slimwilly]

Details bruc1

bruc1

Details bruce dawn

bruce dawn

Details bruce eye

bruce eye

Details bruce3

bruce3

[fireblake]

You can't beat a photo of a running dog.
Those zoom shots are good too, especially the truck, you really get to see how well it zooms in.


Mickey

[slimwilly]

Yes, have got some practicing to do, I have to read the instruction book again,,i have now put the uv lens cover on that came with it..
I should of taken it this morning walking the dogs as the sunrise was good.Along with the frost.i tried some sunsets last night, not too good.should of turned it to night mode I think.

[Simon.Pieman]

I'm on the same sort of learning journey as yourself. I was using a compact a couple of years ago, a Lumix FS7 which is really just a point and shoot camera with a few scene modes to play with. It took 'nice' pics but it didn't really offer me much control over the 'look' of my pictures. I then got a FZ8 which is a bridge camera similar to your recent aquisition and this offered me a little more scope to play with settings BUT it also taught me that without some proper know-how I was rapidly running into a dead end with my photography.
 I think practising taking pictures is fairly useless unless you know what you should actually be practising. It made a world of difference to me when I bought a book on practical photographic techniques and started to learn what I should actually be doing.
 The pictures you've posted are 'nice' but if you sat down and read a good photography book, even just a few chapters/sections, you'd be able to spot several ways to improve them. I hesitate to say there is anything 'wrong' with the pictures, that's a bit unfair, but they could certainly be improved with a bit more knowledge.
 There are lots of books to choose from on Amazon, just read a few reviews and pick one that leans towards the sort of photographing you'd like to do. I found this one very good and easy to understand.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/A-Complete-Guide-Digital-Photography/dp/0857385488/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389542181&sr=8-1&keywords=digital+photography

I've now moved on from my bridge camera and got a nice SLR, a Lumix GF-1 with an Olympus Zoom and I can't stop playing with it -I still have a lot to learn. I also have a nice Sony HX9V which is rather good point and shoot/bridge type with a few 'proper' settings to experiment with, it's a small camera and I can take it anywhere in my jeans pocket which is actually a huge advantage over the bulkier SLR, I certainly take more pics with the Sony.
 As I mentioned earlier it's wise to aquire a little knowledge before practising, that's my advice.

[slimwilly]

Yes ,thanks , all good advice, I will get round to getting some detailed information sometime,,learning about exposure rates and shutter speeds, I am more interested now on the ready made options, see how they work then move onto the manual setting.
 
When my dog goes mad and charges about I have to be quick,point and shoot..

[msmudge]

Listen to the Martin Bailey Photography Podcast on iTunes. Make sure you start from the first episode. You won't need anything else.