Well Gma you have a lot of spare cash if your looking at lens with f2.8. :) Those will be heavier and do you really lens that fast. Once you you drop from a f4 to 2.8 you start to lift weights.

Yes, I keep my white balance to Cloudy all the time for two reasons; one, I shoot 90% landscape and I like how it looks when reviewing, two, since I shoot raw format It doesn't matter most PPing tools will let you flip it to whatever, even B&W. Cloudy get you softer colors.

Peterson is a bit old school with center metering. I only use that when the scene is unbalanced like a bit too much backlight and I want the subject properly exposed even blowing out the background. Again 90% of the the time I stay in matrix to balance the entire scene. You don't need a light meter. The camera meter will keep you honest.

Time to get off auto - go cold turkey! :) If you shooting a person the decision you need to make first - are they still or are they moving. If moving set the camera shutter bias choosing 1/125 to 1/500 and let the camera select the aperture. Unless you are in minimal light you will be fine. If they are still, like a group shot or child in a highchair, set it to aperture bias. What aperture you select depends on how much you want in focus before or after the subject. Want everything then try f/11 - f18. If only the baby and want to blurr out the rest, then try f2.8-f5.6 assuming you get an F2.8 lens. What setting will serve you best, has to do with the lens. You will need to experiment with the lens.

As for lens, your targeted list means you are getting physically close to the subject(s). If you're looking for candid shots and want to stay back and get just the baby's face with ice cream all over it or uncle Bob with barbeque sauce in his eyebrow something in the 200-300 range. The 16-35 is really a wide angle for landscape, not so much for people unless you have 3 generations of people in a line and you want them all in one shot. The 35-70 is better but you still need to get real close.

If money is not an object get the 35-70 and add a 70-200 F4 for a nice range. the 70-200 does come in a f2.8 but very heavy and $$$$$$.


Re-read the chapter on Aperture - storytelling vs. singular vs. who cares.

Good luck you are on your way to getting off auto.

White balance affect the colors of your photos. He probably suggests using cloudy because he likes the warmer look of the pictures. Auto adjusts it for every picture and works fine for me.

No you don't need to buy a light meter. The one in your camera will do the job perfectly well.
The different modes are just different ways of measuring the light. Which one is best will depend on different factors including the subject.
Matrix- is the most sophisticated. I takes lots of readings from all over the picture and uses a complex algorithm to try to calculate the best exposure.
Center weighted - measure light from the whole frame but gives a higher priority to the center of the image.
Spot - Measure only a small area of the frame. This has it's uses. Particularly where the light varies greatly across the frame. It lets you chose then most important area. But is the most difficult to use well.
I suggest you stick to matrix at first as it is the most sophisticated and usually produces good results.
There are always situations which will be difficult to meter and these can fool any light meter.
Learning how the subject and lighting affects exposure will help you compensate for this.

Rob sheppard is a great teacher, his books should help you a lot.

If you are subscribed to CC you have access to Lightroom which is much more valuable than bridge. If your photos are organized already, all you have to do is import them into Lightroom. They can stay right where they are and you can use Lightroom to keep organizing them the same way. Lightroom uses the same tools as camera raw, but with other features for organization, printing, in a very nice interface. But you'll need a book for it too!

When I was trying out the PhotoShop CS5 with their trial version, I bought PhotoShop CS5 for Dummies which, like all Dummies books, is yellow. I found it to be excellent for somebody completely new to Photoshop. Not that there's anything wrong with Kelby books but sometimes professionals make assumptions about what you know already that you actually don't know.

Once you master your body and master Photoshop, I think you may lose your desire for a FF because the output of those two combined with some plug-ins could be pretty amazing.

Rob sheppard is a great teacher, his books should help you a lot.

If you are subscribed to CC you have access to Lightroom which is much more valuable than bridge. If your photos are organized already, all you have to do is import them into Lightroom. They can stay right where they are and you can use Lightroom to keep organizing them the same way. Lightroom uses the same tools as camera raw, but with other features for organization, printing, in a very nice interface. But you'll need a book for it too!

Rob sheppard is a great teacher, his books should help you a lot.

If you are subscribed to CC you have access to Lightroom which is much more valuable than bridge. If your photos are organized already, all you have to do is import them into Lightroom. They can stay right where they are and you can use Lightroom to keep organizing them the same way. Lightroom uses the same tools as camera raw, but with other features for organization, printing, in a very nice interface. But you'll need a book for it too!