Become a Better Photographer! is an online photography course designed for professional photographers who want to advance in their career and for photography enthusiasts who want to elevate their knowledge and technique. This course will be your photography school, your visual boot camp. Together, we will cover the essential concepts of photography for beginners, intermediate enthusiasts and advanced professionals. What are the key elements of this course?Foundational knowledge of the main concepts in photography: It doesn’t matter how you use your camera and your lenses if you don’t know why. This course will explain the science and the technical reasons behind the features of our gear. Operational technique: no matter what the shooting conditions are, photographers constantly face challenges and problems when it comes to capturing the best image possible. My photography lessons will give you guidance and will teach you how to use your knowledge to identify the problems and your technique to fix them. Settings: Modern cameras are a jungle of menus, options, screens, dials, and buttons. In this course, I will give you my set of settings, the ones I use every day at work. In time you will develop your own set but it’s important that you start your learning curve with a benchmark, a set of tools you can use and deep expertise you can build on, from day one. In detail, what will you learn with the lessons in this course?In the first section, called “The tools” I will discuss the main components of lenses and camera bodies. In regard to lenses, I will introduce key topics like aperture, f-numbers, field of view, focal length and their categorization (fisheye, wide-angle, normal, tele, macro, prime and zoom lenses.)About the camera body, we will start examining the difference between the two most modern systems (DSLR and Mirrorless) and their main features like sensor format, pixel count or megapixels, frames per second, ISO range, performance in low light conditions and autofocus system. In the second section, I will examine in detail the main “Ingredients” of the photographic technique: Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO number. We will learn about their relationship with exposure and their creative uses: motion capture, depth of field and the handling of digital noise. I will help you understand the various camera operating modes and which of these ingredients they grant you full control of. I will tell you about the camera mode I favor and most importantly, I will explain why. This section will give you a deep understanding of the key elements of the photographic technique. The ingredients you will learn in these lessons will unleash your creativity and will help you shape and perfect your style. In the third section called “Settings” we will examine all the main settings common to all professional cameras, regardless of make and model. I will explain in plain English what these settings do and I will give you guidelines, suggestions so you wont waste time and energy trying to figure them out during your photoshoots. We will cover a huge array of topics: file format, color space, drive mode, metering mode, color temperature, white balance, mixing light, exposure value compensation, creative styles, picture effects, optical image stabilization, GPS settings, how to handle memory cards, how to handle data loss, introduction to post-production workflow, black and white photography in the digital age, how to read and interpret a histogram. In the fourth section called “Focus”, we will examine the modern autofocus system’s interface and the three main focusing modes: manual, single-shot and continuous.I will discuss all the different kinds of focus area settings (wide, zone and spot) and I will give you my guidelines on which one to use according to the scene you’re photographing and according to the type of camera you are using.I will also introduce Face detection and Face & Eye tracking, the latest and most exciting technological advancement in autofocus systems. In the last section, called “Composition,” I will discuss the basic guidelines of composition and most of all my firm belief that composition should not have strict rules.I will give you guidance and I will show you some basic techniques. I will explain the importance of creating dimensional layers to produce the impression of depth in your image. I will teach you how to value and enhance the relationship between subject, background, and foreground. I will introduce the concept of off-camera influence. This section will be a true creative session that will help you form and develop your style. Note: this photography course is non camera-specific. Regardless of what gear you own or you intend to buy, this course will give you the expertise and the tools you need to improve your technique, develop your style and advance in your career.
