In at the deep end

When I bought my wee camera in November, it was love at first sight. Easy to use, great image quality, compact and (in my opinion) a bit cool.

However, I have to confess that I rarely stray from two settings - macro and erm, automatic. I hear the muffled cries of horror and tutting from the big guns who use this site.

So I have decided to have a wee shot at getting better and understanding the whole photo-taking thing a bit more. Like many workplaces, we are inundated with el cheapo books brought in monthly by a smiling man - mainly cookery books on 101 things to do with asparagus, biographies of unknown sporting legends from the 1950s and top tip books on cleaning your home from top to bottom with bicarbonate of soda and herbal rememdies for aches and pains. All a load of tat. However there was a nice photography book, so I bought it and very nice it is too - published by Dorling Kindersley, whose colours and photos always tempt me, regardless of the genre.

Tutorial 1 is entitled 'Key camera controls'; I'm confused already.