Advice for a New DSLR owner

[zenador]

So after the last few days taking pictures, I found something frustrating. The LCD on the camera. I find that in different lighting, reviewing photos can be a pain. Better than film where you don't know till they are developed, but still. I find myself adjusting the shutter speed or apareture till I get a "desired" result on the screen. When I get them on my PC, what looked good on the camera doesn't necessarily look good on the PC. Some that looked washed out on the camera look just fine on the PC.

I have 2 laptops that I can port around with me and tether my camera to them. One is a tablet, so I can have it just like a larger screen for reviewing. I also have a small palm-top laptop (Dell X1) that's tiny and way more portable. Should I bother? I'm just looking for more consistant results.

Zen

[Mad Aussie]

Adjust your LCD for brightness to compensate AND look for information on how to read the histogram properly. Marko has a podcast on that I think.

If in doubt then shoot slightly underexposed because that retains more information in the file, thereby keeping the colour and details whereas over exposure loses that more quickly. In this way you can use PS to save the shot easily.