DSLR Photography Forum

I just thought I'd share my impression of my recently started photography course with you all.
feel free to move me to a different forum if I'm out of place with it here

The school is called Photomanhatten, and acutally I think I came accross a link for the first time on shuttertalk.

tonight was our second meeting, out of nine total weekly sessions at the end of which everyone presents a series of 6-10 pictures of a project. It's a beginner's class, which I thought was fine for me, expecially as you couln't get into the advanced without having taken the beginners. And aledgedly a lot of people who studied or worked in photography were taking this class to "refresh" their skills....

Now I wonder, at moments. It strikes me how people buy expensive equipment and have NO CLUE how to use it.
10 out of 13 total participants have "nicer" gear than I (me:Canon 350D, them: Canon 5D, 20D, Nikon D70 etc), but 12 out of 13 don't know why f16 gives a darker picture than f8, or that the figure 6 on their display is 1/6th of a second, and NOT 6 seconds, minutes, hours, apples or whatever! :o
Part of this must be the New York factor, that people just don't care if they spend $5000 on a camara and then essentially use it as point-and-shoot, if ever.
by the way, it's a mixed class, but only 2/13 people are shooting on film.

Anyway, the teacher is a real photographer and knows a terrible lot of stuff. eager as he is to share his knowledge he easily talks for the whole 2 hours of the course, so definitely there is a whole lot of information available.
And he does some cool stuff with us, visualising certain concepts of capturing lights.
Like these once we made today (the teacher acting as model):










I find this kind of exercise helpful to remember the theory behind a lot of the things you do intuitively when shooting, and it's a good thing to make sure I've understood it.

So I nourish my hope that we will get over the initial steps of figuring out what aperture and what exposure is and take of to higher grounds

hope you enjoy the pictures

uli

Cool, sounds alot like a class I did last year. I'm hoping to take another one later this year.
Your teacher sounds (and looks it too) like ours, a bit goofy and he'd talk the leg off a horse

Hope you learn lots and have loads of fun with it

Are there any decent online ones in AU that someone can recommend? I am thinking of doing one to help me and also give me some more drive in my hobby.

I think you are doing, and illustrating a BRILLIANT thing!
When you say " It strikes me how people buy expensive equipment and have NO CLUE how to use it. " I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY. However, I'm jealous of your 350D. I only have an ageing 10D.......
Keep up the good work, there's ALWAYS more to learn......AND ITS FUN!!!

That's awesome, Uli - I'm thinking seriously about joining some classes from my local camera club this year. I think a very good way to learn is by first hand experience and also conversing with fellow photographers in the flesh.

Do keep us updated on what you cover in each class!

Congratulations

Always to have a photography course is great and I think helps a lot....

I once took one photography course... but as it was in German and a lot of technical words were unknown to me.... well I understood nothing but still it was a lot of fun to go out with the group to take pictures.... So basically my photography school has been shuttertalk and my teachers all its members...