Haa. I guess a crooked arrow would be in a different catagory. I actually love my 3100 and have taken some pretty good shots with it.
Good to know about the lenses. Thanks.

So did you like the 7100 performance?
So far I have heard nothing but good things about it.
I start my days off tomorrow so I am planning to take it to the beach for a test drive. I took it out one day last week,
but was having some problems with auto focus wanting to focus on everything but what I wanted it to focus on.
I think I have that taken care of now.

Since I seem to step on someone's toes every time exposure methods are brought up I decided to write some of my thoughts then folks can step on my toes. (I have steel toed shoes

Anyone who wants to improve there photography should learn how to use the exposure triangle (1 sensitivity of medium being used ISO in Digital and ASA in film. 2 Aperture 3 shutter speed) to be able to get the look they want out of their photography. The way to do this is to learn how to use your camera in manual or one of the priority (aperture or shutter speed) settings.

The first thing you need to know is how to get a good exposure. Some advocate using the Sunny 16 rule. You set your camera at F/16 under a sunny sky and your shutter speed at whatever ISO/ASA you are using. If it were 200 you would set your shutter speed at 1/200th of a sec. Look down at the 1962 picture taken with the sunny 16 rule. With the blown out highlights and dark shadows not good. So you need to know how to set your camera in different lighting conditions. Kodak made a exposure dial that was available on a card or in their Kodak Pocket Photoguide which is pictured below. You can line up the lighting condition with the film speed and then read the different aperture/shutter speed combinations you can use to get a good exposure. Then you can pick the shutter speed or aperture you need to accomplish the type of picture you are taking and use the other setting to complete the triangle. The settings on the chart that would correspond with sunny 16 are - very bright sun (snow or light sand) f/22 sun f/16 hazy sun f/8 heavy overcast f/5.6 open shade f/4. If you are interested in manual with no meter most of the time you can find the Kodak book on eBay.

My #3 son has perfect pitch and since he was 9 and started tuning his own violin he could tune the A string (the string that you start tuning with) to the perfect pitch. We checked him several times with a tuning fork and he was always right on. I do believe that there are some folks that can "read" light and be right on all the time. I am not one of them so I use and other none gifted souls to forget about reading the light and use an exposure meter. I have pictured one below and you can see that after you set the film speed (ISO) to what you are using and match the needles and it give you the shutter speed/aperture settings you can use. Other meters read different but give the same info. Read your instruction book. You may want to use the meter in your camera by setting shutter speed or aperture and then moving the other tell whatever your camera has as an indicator lines up.

Now that you know how to get a good exposure you need to know what to set to get the look you want.

Remember you are limited by the light you have. For example you cannot use very slow shutter speeds if you have bright light or very fast if you light is dim.

In the exposure triangle you can pick two of the settings and the 3rd setting is "set in stone" for the right exposure. You may want to over or under expose to get what you want so to get that look but only one setting will get it. A few of my thoughts on why I pick what - ISO as you know the higher you go the less light you need the one problem as you go higher the more noise you get so many go as low as they can. This may be a thing of the past with the newer cameras being able to use high ISO without noise. You may also want to use a low ISO if you want slow shutter speeds tor artistic blur like waterfalls. Aperture - This is the one I use the most. I like to control Depth of Field so I use and have the ISO set so I don't get noise and let the shutter speed fall where it may as long as it's not to slow and since I shoot In aperture priority I can make a setting that ups the ISO if shutter speeds go too low. Just a thought on f/stops. I had my 35mm lens on my camera and noticed it had no f/stops marked on it. I have just always used the ones on my camera since that is where they are set. Then I noticed that with the stops in 1/3 that if I did not know I would have no idea what stops were the traditional stops and which were in 1/3 stops between. Here they are starting from the largest aperture (remember that F/stops are fractions so the smallest numbers are the largest opening) f/1.4 - f/2 - f/2.8 - f/ 4 - f/5.6 - f/8 - f/11 - f/16 - f22 - f/32 - f/45 - f/65. Shutter speed can be used if you want to either stop motion by setting fast or slow if you want to use some technics.

Going manual on a digital camera is more than the exposure triangle You need to look at white balance and camera settings for picture controls to match what you are shooting or you may want to just shoot RAW and do those things in PP

Just for the record I have forgot more things about photography than most hoggers will ever know. The trouble is I have forgot them so If you see something I left out or got wrong feel free to jump in and share your knowledge too. - Dave

Dave, this is a great start, but a discussion about getting correct exposure and not mentioning the Zone System is missing the most important part - how to interpret what the meter tells you.

My favorite example is to get three cats - a gray cat, a black one and a white one. Read the light reflected from each, and the black cat will reflect the least, indicating a lower exposure value. The gray cat will reflect more, and the white cat the most.

If you take the exposure suggestions for the black cat, and take the picture, the black cat will look more gray, the gray almost white, and the white cat will be a white blob with no detail. Intuitively, if you use the reading for the gray cat, in all likelihood, the black cat will be black, and the white cat white, and all will have good detail. (As long as your camera has enough dynamic range - which is the subject of another, but related discussion)

Understanding why is the most difficult thing for beginners, and even some advanced shooters.