You're approaching photography wrong. Sometimes, quantity == quality. In this case, it's not the quantity of time you spend studying to be a 'serious' photographer but rather the raw quantity of pictures you take.
Before you give up, try this:
Next time you're out taking photos, commit to throwing away 75% of what you shoot. Now, relax, have fun, and shoot with the goal of filling up your flash card. Forget about everything you've read about aperture settings and exposure. Leave that stuff for the people that depend of their photos for their income.
Shoot in auto mode. Do stupid shit with your camera. Anything that you think will make you look like an idiot will probably make a better picture. Lay on the ground and shoot pictures of people's feet, hold it over your head and blindly snap portraits of your family. Get in people's faces to the point where they are uncomfortable. Switch to aperture priority and set it wide open. Take 20 pictures of the exact same thing 12 different ways.
Then go back home and throw 75% of them away. Most likely, you'll still hate 99% of the ones you saved. But come back to them in a year, after you forgot you shot them, and you'll find you love them.
But more than anything, relax and have fun first. Because ultimately, no one really cares if you can take Pulitzer-winning photos or not, they just want to reminisce about that trip the family took to the Smokey Mountains and joke about that horrible hat they were wearing. And if you can have fun doing that, then you can get better at taking photos.
"Forget about everything you've read about aperture settings and exposure. Leave that stuff for the people that depend of their photos for their income."
I couldn't disagree more with this. I'm not a professional photographer but knowing basics about aperture/shutter speed/ISO is pretty important to knowing how to get the right look that you want.
At the very least, just put it on Apeture Priority and set the ISO/Aperture manually because then you'll develop an instinct as to how to adjust to certain light settings, and how well your lens does at specific depths of field.
I agree with both of you. I shoot in both auto and aperture priority modes. I've lost good shots by monkeying with settings, and I've also lost good shots because auto didn't cut it and I wasn't quick enough at picking the right aperture and exposure compensation. For a beginner who wants to get good but also doesn't want to completely whiff on important moments, they're both essential.
I make a lot better pictures since I set everything to automatic. In fact, I really love the Smart mode in my Samsung WB600. It is now basically a point-n-shoot camera.
It enables me to focus on the subject: family, animals, plants, landscape, whatever. The algorithm has a lot more patience and competence for the secondary details.
Isn't the WB600 a point-and-shoot camera anyway? I haven't used it but just looked it up briefly.
People CAN basically use Full-Auto on a DSLR which wouldn't hurt their images but I think that they miss the nuances of a lens or how making slight adjustments to the settings will create a different effect. I don't see any personal benefits from ignoring details of the craft.
The WB600 is really from the lower-end, but has modes to control ISO, aperture and bracket size.
I didn't deny people can use these settings to make the photos really shine, but for non-professionals, it is -- from my point of view -- wiser to focus on the people you're taking photos of. Amateurs should really master angle, position and so forth before diving into the world of technical minorities - which is often not the case.
Before you give up, try this:
Next time you're out taking photos, commit to throwing away 75% of what you shoot. Now, relax, have fun, and shoot with the goal of filling up your flash card. Forget about everything you've read about aperture settings and exposure. Leave that stuff for the people that depend of their photos for their income.
Shoot in auto mode. Do stupid shit with your camera. Anything that you think will make you look like an idiot will probably make a better picture. Lay on the ground and shoot pictures of people's feet, hold it over your head and blindly snap portraits of your family. Get in people's faces to the point where they are uncomfortable. Switch to aperture priority and set it wide open. Take 20 pictures of the exact same thing 12 different ways.
Then go back home and throw 75% of them away. Most likely, you'll still hate 99% of the ones you saved. But come back to them in a year, after you forgot you shot them, and you'll find you love them.
But more than anything, relax and have fun first. Because ultimately, no one really cares if you can take Pulitzer-winning photos or not, they just want to reminisce about that trip the family took to the Smokey Mountains and joke about that horrible hat they were wearing. And if you can have fun doing that, then you can get better at taking photos.