Actually I'd recommend that you start out on the "P" setting in the beginning. Do yourself a favor though and pay very close attention to what the camera is recommending as far as the aperature and shutter speed. From there you can swith to Aperature priority or Shutter priority to get the results that are closer to what you want. After you are comfortable with those options then you can move to full manual mode. If you go to manual mode too soon you'll probably be unhappy with your results. I'd also recommend that you shoot in RAW at least while you're learning. Doing so will allow you to modify the white balance once the image is on your computer. You'll be amazed how much better the image will look once you have everything dialed in. Good luck!
