3 useful photography tips

Having vigorously absorbed all information regarding photography in the last year or so, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and lens focal length have thoroughly been shoved down my throat. So when creativeLIVE was hosting John Greengo's class on Fundamentals of Photography, I figured it would be nothing more than a five day workshop on nothing but aperture, shutter speed, etc... For some reason I played the beginning of the first day as background noise while roaming for something else and I was quickly sucked in to the wealth of information that John was throwing at me. The slides themselves were worth watching! Anyway, I watched the full five days and learned a ton. I've tried to push my way through the jungle of technical speak on the internet and as soon as anyone starts debating the difference between camera sensors my girl brain shuts off (and to think, the only subjects I thought did that were guns and cars). It was so refreshing for John to sit there, figuratively look me in the eye, and figuratively say, "This is everything you have struggled to learn and attempted to learn for a year. And I'm doing it in laymen's terms." So here are three things I learned, that I never learned before, and can't guarantee I would've ever learned if someone wouldn't have sat me down and showed me:

1. Telephoto lenses compress images to bring the back and foreground visually closer together.
2. If you do not have a full frame sensor camera the focal length of your lens will be different than the actual number. Here's a hint: If you didn't spend at least four paychecks on your camera, you probably don't have a full frame camera. For the rest of us here's an example: a 50mm lens will become the equivalent to roughly 35mm with a 1.5x crop sensor. (Focal length divided by sensor size = ~adjusted focal length) 50/1.5=~35.
3. If you have a Vibration Reduction lens, turn the VR off when you put it on a tripod. Otherwise, your camera will spend so much effort to correct for something that doesn't exist.

You're welcome.