Supplies for beginners?

[Drizzt321]

Most of all, I would offer your services for free or really cheap until you really start to get a hang of how it all flows. It will be a great learning opportunity and they will be more forgiving.

Well, I think for right now he's mostly just going to be doing family photos and such for himself and his family. They probably saw he has a 'big' camera and everyone started tell him/her that he/she is now voted to be the family photographer.

[Chris Geiger]

The first thing you should buy is a book called "Photography" by Barbara London. You can find it on Amazon. This is  the book for learning photography. Read it, study it, live it. Practice everything in the book. It will teach you how to measure light and how to control your camera and is a primer for lighting basics.

[gloch]

Well, I think for right now he's mostly just going to be doing family photos and such for himself and his family. They probably saw he has a 'big' camera and everyone started tell him/her that he/she is now voted to be the family photographer.

It's a great way to get started to see if you enjoy it and if you want to do anything more with it.

-gl

[cmercer]

Most of all, I would offer your services for free or really cheap until you really start to get a hang of how it all flows. It will be a great learning opportunity and they will be more forgiving.

Well, I think for right now he's mostly just going to be doing family photos and such for himself and his family. They probably saw he has a 'big' camera and everyone started tell him/her that he/she is now voted to be the family photographer.

So I have been named the family photographer for a while now...3 years?! Now I am having friends and friends of friends asking me to do their family portraits.  That is why I am excited to go further with what I know! Plus making a little money for my efforts is not such a bad thing!

[DB]

The first thing you should buy is a book called "Photography" by Barbara London. You can find it on Amazon. This is  the book for learning photography. Read it, study it, live it. Practice everything in the book. It will teach you how to measure light and how to control your camera and is a primer for lighting basics.

+1 It is always a good idea to buy a couple of illustrated photography books - especially if they are 2006 to 2009 editions as you can get them quite cheaply.

Personally, I've found that Bryan Peterson has some great books called Understanding Exposure and Understanding Photography that are fully illustrated, minimal text, nice simple English descriptions and he covers the essentials of RAW too.

Also, Scott Kelby has written a series of four books called The Digital Photography Book Vol. 1, 2 ,3 & 4 although I have to warn you that he shoots with Nikon - so that makes him practically a Satanist on this forum

Seriously though, his books are quite good and inexpensive (see Amazon link below)
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Photography-Book-Part/dp/0321773020/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351563128&sr=1-1&keywords=scott+kelby

[Drizzt321]

Most of all, I would offer your services for free or really cheap until you really start to get a hang of how it all flows. It will be a great learning opportunity and they will be more forgiving.

Well, I think for right now he's mostly just going to be doing family photos and such for himself and his family. They probably saw he has a 'big' camera and everyone started tell him/her that he/she is now voted to be the family photographer.

So I have been named the family photographer for a while now...3 years?! Now I am having friends and friends of friends asking me to do their family portraits.  That is why I am excited to go further with what I know! Plus making a little money for my efforts is not such a bad thing!

Ahh, I see. Well, in that case start pretty low/free for at least a couple. In fact, practice on your family as you learn more. Also read up on portraiture and family portraiture, and especially on lighting. Light, really, is everything in photography. Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, they are all just different ways of manipulating the light that hits and is recorded by the sensor. So, you will likely have to invest a bit in some additional lighting at some point in time, but not right away.

[wsmith96]

I was in the same position back in 2009.  I had just bought my rebel T1i and it came with the 18-55 and my family bought me the 70-300 IS USM lens and a 270EX speedlite.   I first started with Dave Busch's book on the T1i and some of the photography magazines that came out of the UK.  They did a good job getting me on my feet and my photographs improved greatly.  A year later I took a formal photography and photoshop course through our city's parks and recreation group.
 
The next major purchase, for me at least, was the 60mm EF-S macro.   This lens takes great pictures and will allow you to zoom in close for details - something you might desire for newborns.

Now that I have a few years of experience, I just upgraded to the EF-S 17-55 and 10-22 lenses, and a 430EX II flash.  For what I do, I don't have an immediate need to upgrade the camera yet, but I would like a faster shutter speed for photographing my children's sports eventually.  On my wish list still is the 100mm L IS USM macro and the 70-200 IS USM F2.8 L zoom.  Another one to consider is the EF-S 15-85mm.  I don't have this one, but I've heard it is very handy to have when you need just a bit more reach and the reviews I've seen on it say it's fantastic.

As for software, I use Canon's DPP and Corel's aftershot pro and paintshop pro.   If you are going to make money off of your photography, I would recommend not using Corel's products as the majority of professionals use Adobe's photoshop and lightroom products.  It is also much easier to get 3rd party plug-ins for Adobe products as well.   I don't have any experience with Apple's products, so I can't speak to those.  If you are a weekender like me, the cost of the Corel products is perfect and I can't tell a difference in quality between what I did in a Corel program or Adobe program, so for me, the cost of the software was a determining factor.

I would also recommend getting 2-3 memory cards and I like Canon's camera backpack.  It has a lot of room in it and you can get it for $40 on Amazon.  A lens pen is nice to have too along with a second battery, or a battery grip for your camera.

Good luck!

[cayenne]

<snip> Read as much for free on the Internet and also buy some books, Brian petersons "understanding exposure" is ubiquitous. <snip>

I would like to second this heartily!!!

That book is one of the first I got...I'm still re-reading it to get the concepts down, but I'm now rarely on anything but "manual" on my camera...I still throw a lot out, but I'm learning by leaps and bounds how to shoot and expose for how I want things to look.

Not just capturing moments, but capturing moments in the fashion that I wish it to be preserved.

Also, research, research, research. Youtube, IMHO, is a great place to start. I do better by people showing real world examples how to do things. Sure, you have to sort through some cruft to find the 'gems'....but they are there and aren't hard to find.

I have spoken to the OP on another thread...he has a mac...I recommended starting with iPhoto..since it comes with the mac.

I did this (and with iMovie)....I read and watched a metric TON of YouTube video tutorials and just shot and started trying to use the tools. It works.

I wanted a bit more...and got Aperture, for $80, the price is certainly right.

After messing with video, I wanted more..now, I'm futzing around with FCPX for editing and even trying to learn color grading with Resolve 9 Lite (free).

In closing...again, gotta echo getting the Understanding Exposure book, it is cheap on amazon. After that, explore the tools you have on the mac...research a bit, tons of info on the internet and youtube these days...can be one of your biggest starting resources.

Everyone and their goat is demo'ing stuff on YT. It is a good spring board to learning...

HTH,

cayenne