Reply To: Looking for advice!

[no one special]

I stand by my advise to avoid the “M” for now. Here is why.
Manual mode is good for learning. But, there is more to it than just “Put it on M”, but no one explains that. At least no one here has. In part, you need to study various aspects of photography then use manual mode to explore each of those aspects in a variety of situations.

But you won’t do that. You will read some, maybe a lot. Maybe even the manual for your Powershot SX30 IS. Then the next time you are out with your camera you will make sure you get the picture you want by using the method you are comfortable with. After that you will try out those things you remember from your reading. You won’t keep notes (or even what to keep notes of) when you are trying out different things, so you won’t remember what you did once you get home and look at them on the computer. And that 2.7″ screen on the back of the camera is too small to notice many of the differences. If you do remember, because you did keep notes or only took a few shots and only changed one or two things just a little, you will use those same settings the next time you go out, and not understand why the results are so different.