Description

Photography is a wonderful and engaging hobby, allowing not only technical challenges but also the opportunity to engage with individual creativity. With modern cameras and technology, it is as popular as ever, but whilst equipment has become more automated, there is still no substitute to a solid grounding of basic understanding.

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Our 12 module course aims to run through all the basic information you will need to know in weekly ‘bite size’ chunks. Each week we will cover technical ideas and creative thoughts, setting students an exciting practical assignment. Our objective is to replicate a physical weekly college style course using modern information technology and on-line conferencing, it will be live with your tutor and not a video. With only a small class of 8 students per course and frequent opportunities to discuss your work individually with your tutor, we hope every participant will feel supported through this process. We will also encourage support and idea sharing amongst the class, creating a rich and friendly learning environment.

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The 12 modules in this course are:

1. How a camera works

2. Basic ‘modes’

3. Shutter speeds and resulting effects

4. Apertures and resulting effects

5. ISO (sensitivity), ‘noise’ and balancing key exposure controls

6. Histograms and review information

7. Focus operation

8. Metering operation and exposure compensation

9. Auxiliary controls - quality settings, white balance, picture effects, drive and live view

10. Lenses

11. Post production

12. Creative idea summary

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Each week the students will be guided through a learning process, which hopefully will give structure to the course but also enable a degree of flexibility to allow everyone to tailor the experience for their own circumstances.

• Each week will include:

• A scheduled ‘Zoom’ video conference call for the class lasting around 1.5 hours (normally planned for mid evening on a weekday).

• A following e-mail with the PDF notes from the conference call and a link to watch (or watch again) the conference call content if you missed something or could not initially join us.

• The weekly PDF course material will include your weekly assignment with a 7-day deadline for completion.

• Tutors will be available through the week via e-mail, if there is anything you do not understand or wish to explore in more detail.

 

Your tutors for these sessions will be David or Janet Southard with the possible addition of other ‘expert guests. David & Janet have been working in the photography industry for many years and are well known guides on many of our workshops. They are both widely published and respected in their field and regularly undertake commercial assignments.

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The 12 modules in more detail:

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How a camera works

A run through of what a digital camera is and fundamentally how it works with focus, controlling light with aperture and shutter, digital sensitivity, electronic storage and output.

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Basic ‘modes’

What are camera ‘modes’ and what does this enable us to achieve. A review of GREEN SQUARE, P, A (AV), S (TV), and M modes.

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Shutter speeds and effects

The huge importance of the cameras shutter not only as a mechanism to vary light quantity but also the different effects it can achieve with the control of movement in resulting images.

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Apertures and effects

The significance of the camera’s aperture not only as a mechanism to vary light quantity but how its’ use can vary the amount of focus achieved in the resulting image.

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ISO (sensitivity), ‘noise’ and balancing key exposure controls

How we can use a digital camera’s variable, electronic sensitivity to light to maximise opportunities in different conditions and what consequences we may face with shooting at high ISO levels. We can then recap on apertures and shutter speeds, leading us on to how we balance these three controls to give us the best exposure and creative output.

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Histograms and review information

What information modern cameras can provide us and how this can help us understand our results quickly, leading to improved images.

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Focus operation

The huge significance of getting the best from our cameras complex focus system. We will review manual focus operation and the various ways we can improve the specific performance of auto focus.

Metering operation and exposure compensation

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How we can understand our cameras light metering and quick ways of expressing our preferences over and beyond straight automation in exposure.

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Auxiliary controls - quality settings, white balance, picture effects, drive and live view

A run through of the various ‘auxiliary’ controls your cameras is likely to have and how we can get the best from them for the results we are looking for.

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Lenses

Modern enthusiast cameras will normally have the ability to change lenses and this will open up extraordinary possibilities to expand and adapt your creative photography. This module covers basic lens functions and variations.

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Post production

Digital photography inevitably involves at least a small amount of computer knowledge to enhance and output your images. This module covers basic ideas for popular software (normally Adobe Lightroom).

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Creative idea summary

A final module bringing everything together to realise all of our creative potential with a final, personal assignment.

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