Photography course for beginners. 5 days.

This 5-day course is addressed to those who use their DSLR camera mainly on AUTO but wish to unleash the full potential of their camera. The course is for complete beginners and is for those who like to take time in their learning experience.

• You will understand your cameras potential using all modes, and primarily manual
• You will discover each function that is built-in your camera in order to create better imagery
• You will learn the key fundamentals of digital photography
• You will learn some secret professionals tricks and history of photographic art
• You will get a handbook with notes on everything that the course covers and access to digital tutorials in order to practice all what you’ve learned (You would need to bring a USB drive for the digital handbook)

Find out what decades of feature development by the manufacturers have in store for you!
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Description

The course is designed to cover all the important topics, which are essential for a beginner. Unlike our 3 day course, this course takes a detailed look at all the modes and functions of your camera and includes more practical exercises.

We schedule at least one lesson at sunset. In addition, a set of daytime exercises will be repeated in the darkness to learn the difference of handling some essential things.

Every small theoretical block will be followed up with a few simple exercises which help to understand the topic and avoid the typical common mistakes.

The teachers, Polina Fedorova or Varvara Kameneva are professional photographers.
Polina is a founder of the school. She works as a photographer for clients like ELLE, VOGUE, VANITY FAIR, and photo editor for several widely distributed Russian magazines(Mir, Afisha…). Polina has been teaching photography in Montreal since 2006.
Varvara has been a photographer for 7 years, she studied Visual Communications at Vanier College, as well as completed a diploma in Professional Photography at Concordia University. Varvara has been teaching photography in our school for almost 2 years.

If you have any questions related to this course, you could contact Polina ([email protected]) or Varvara ([email protected]) for more information.

Pricing:

Price: $180
Duration: 10 hours in total.
Maximum 6 students in a group.
Gift certificates available.
No age restrictions.

Location:

5540 Saint-Patrick
Montreal,QC,Canada, H4E1A8

Schedule:

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Buy a gift certificate

If you are not available during the scheduled times, or you are not able to attend one of the sessions, don’t hesitate to contact us. Our groups are small, and we have some level of flexibility.

Detailed description

The course consists of three lessons(2 hours each):

• 1st lesson – Introduction. Types of camera and in depth distinction between mirrorless and cameras with mirrors. Focusing systems (Automatic vs Manual), Autofocus lock exercises. Learn about Modes of camera (Auto, P, Manual). Discover Exposure compensation on semi-automatic mode. Types of sensors and resolution. Overlook of Exposure Triangle: Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO and their mutual relation. Theory and practice. Homework.
• 2nd lesson – Homework review. Shutter Speed class. Explore Shutter Speed on semi-automatic mode relatively to the available light. Manual of the Shutter. Explanation of the BULB mode and light meter. Theory and practice on freeze motion and panning. After these 2 classes, student will have an understanding of the relationship between ISO and Shutter Speed
• 3rd lesson – Homework review. Long exposure. Theory and practice. Light brush. Painting with light. Understanding white balance (Automatic Presets vs Custom Balance). Depending on the weather, the classes are held in the studio, but if the weather is great that night, there will be a 30 minutes outdoors session. If you have your own tripod, please bring it with you. Homework
• 4th lesson – Homework review. Learn about different type of lens. Zoom vs Prime.Understanding of focal length and what does it mean. Aperture on semi-automatic and control of aperture on Manual mode. Depth of Field. Lens compression. Lens distortion. Theory and practice. Homework.
• 5th lesson – Homework review. DOF. Rule 16. Stops of lights. Rule of Thirds.Shutter Speed priority and Aperture priority. Exposure compensation. Understanding how to put all the priorities in order basing it on the shooting conditions. Learning to analyze the unfocused and unbalanced image in order to understand where is the mistake and to learn to correct it.

If you prefer one-to-one study, you can have private lessons.

As soon as you have the basics skills and able to handle your camera in Manual mode, you are welcome to join course for intermediate and our regular photography workshops.

Tutorials

Read our tutorials for beginners.

Requirements for students:

Digital SLR Camera or Bridge Camera with fully manual controls.
Please bring all your lenses and an external flashes if you have one.
A tripod will be fine but not mandatory.

Don’t have your own DSLR camera?
There’s no need to worry. You can hire one of ours for $10 per day. Send us an email for more details.

Course tutorials:

Shooting in AUTO is like using a microscope as a hammer.
Shutter speed
Aperture
Textbook/images for the course

The detailed list of covered topics:

• Camera’s menus and settings
• Essential functions and engineering of camera body and lens
• How to control your exposures by using the camera in fully manual mode
• Shutter speed and shutter priority
• How to capture sport and actions
• Aperture and depth of field, f-stops
• How to control and exploit depth of field
• Aperture priority
• The best way to photograph people, objects and landscapes
• Iso / film speed / digital noise
• How to take a great picture in low light
• How to lock the focus and compose fantastic shots
• White balance, colour temperature, Kelvin, camera’s white balance pre-sets
• Custom white balance
• White balance shift – how to make sure they’re the colours you want them to be
• Focus, focus modes, how to navigate around the focus points
• Manual Focus
• How to use the two essential priority programmes
• P mode, light meter, metering modes
• Exposure compensation
• How to take a good portrait when sun is behind your model
• Panning techniques
• How to choose your lens, main groups of lenses
• Rule of thirds
• The art of good photography composition
• Long exposure
• How to take great images at night.
• Light painting