I will likely come across as a dick for posting this but - I can't imagine going to a photo forum and reading suggested settings, and then inputting them to my camera and taking pictures. Come on, seriously? Whatever happened to self-expression and personal style? How about finding your OWN settings that make YOU happy because YOU found them and perfected them to YOUR liking, rather than using someone else's? This is the equivalent of sampling in music. Well kind of. It destylizes your shots because you are not setting your camera up with what YOU like and prefer - you are using other people's preferences, on your big dollar item which you bought to express yourself. Think about it. Learn how to use your camera.

I learned 100% of everything I know from my own trial and error, out on the field. And I started doing it when pretty much all club photogs were taking pictures that were like 90% black space, and a brightly lit (or sometimes not well lit at all) subject somewhere in the frame. And then there were the no-flash blurred as fawk lighting shots and such. Quite frankly, nobody gave a sh*t about club photos. So they just pointed the camera in a general direction and pressed the button. Ok, there's the picture. Damn, it looks like crap. Well look, there is no light in here, of course it's not going to look good.

This is along the same lines as "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime." Your ultimate power with a camera (or a myriad of other similar things, for that matter) comes from being able to adjust to ANY surrounding and condition, on the fly. Knowing what to change, when you are there. Because I guarantee you no 2 environments are the same. You can take the same settings used to get good photos at one place and plug them into your camera and shoot at a different place, and all your shots might look like crap. Now what do you do? You have to know what your settings do and how everything affects other settings. How does the direction and position of the flash head affect your shots? How does the diffusing / bounce method change your lighting? How does ISO affect your shutter speed? What do the different AF modes do and what are they used for?

ok, flamesuit on.