Nikon Is Streaming Online Photography Courses For Free This Month (engadget.com) 24
Nikon USA is offering 10 classes from the its online school for free during the month of April. Engadget reports: The courses range in length from 15 minutes to well over an hour, and all are taught by pro photographers and often Nikon ambassadors. Each class runs between $15 and $50, so Nikon is offering $250 worth of photography training for free. The courses run a wide gamut from landscape photography, macro photography, fundamentals by Reed Hoffman and even "The Art of Making Music Videos" with Chris Hershman. Several others are camera-specific, like a Z50 video course from Kitty Peters and a hands-on course with Nikon's SB-5000 speedlight. You do have to give Nikon your name and address, but the value of the courses is easily worth that -- to check them out, go here.
Re:Not work (Score:4, Informative)
Although interested I'm not even going to try.
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Seems that way :-(
Hopefully they will appear on Torrent sites soon because they actually look interesting. I read an introductory book years ago and it vastly improved my non-existent skills, even though comparatively I still suck. A few basic techniques really make a big difference.
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True. I do have a DSLR but rarely use it now, I mostly use my phone. There are some good videos on that too.
I'm getting to the point where I'd like to upgrade the phone to get a better camera. A recent comparison between the Pixel 4 and a Nikon for night shots showed that the Pixel was actually very competitive, better in some cases. Of course if you have other equipment, tripod, lighting, lots of time the DSLR will win but for a casual like myself...
Unfortunately the rest of the Pixel 4 has some issues so
Eh...open your phone pics on a 4k monitor (Score:4, Insightful)
A recent comparison between the Pixel 4 and a Nikon for night shots showed that the Pixel was actually very competitive, better in some cases.
Everything looks good on a tiny phone screen. Try viewing it in a modern monitor and see if they still look the same to you. I take 10,000 photos a year (don't judge) of my small children as well as friends and local sporting events and spend a lot of time viewing and editing them.
/. If phones took "good enough" photos, no professional would lug a $10,000 camera and 30lbs of gear around. Professional cameras would look like phones with more rugged grips and maybe bigger batteries. We're not hipsters...like those folks that think it sounds better on vinyl. We (I'm an enthusiast, not a pro) use real gear because they take better pictures....even before you factor in special lenses and speedlites.
Phones are improving, but I have a full frame DSLR and a Pixel 3 myself. My wife has the latest iPhone...dramatic boost from older phones, but nowhere near what a DSLR provides. I say this every time the subject comes up on
The traits that make a good phone (small size) make a terrible camera and the traits that make for a good camera (large sensor size) make a terrible phone.
Take any full frame camera, pair it with a good prime lens (including a 50mm f1.8) and take a photo indoors.
Take as similar of a pic as possible with your phone
Now load both on a 4k monitor.
What you will see is that there is less noise on the camera version.
There will be more detail.
The color will be richer.
2 years ago, there was absolutely no question the camera took better pics, even when viewing on a small phone screen. Now they've closed the gap with AI post processing so that it looks similar on very small, crappy screens. Your iPhone11 photos look just like my DSLR photos on instagram when viewed on an iPhone 5s. When you view them on a 27" or larger 4k monitor, you can see a clear advantage in the photos.
If you're young, I will give you some advice. Just because something is "good enough" today doesn't mean it will be that way 10, 20 years in the future. 18 years ago, in college, I took photos on medium resolution to save space on the limited memory cards of the time. medium resolution looked just fine on 2002-era CRT monitors 1280x1024 and the large photos slowed down my camera, took forever to download, and I couldn't tell the difference in 2002. I also bought reasonably priced cameras instead of opting to spend an extra 1k for the nascent DSLRs. I strongly regret it today...pics from my youth, pics from my honeymoon...days you can't get back. The pics were good enough back then, but look pretty crappy on today's iPads and monitors. Sure, if all you're doing is taking pictures of your lunch on Instagram...use whatever...but you can't go back in time and retake the pictures and you'll really value them later...seeing you when you were younger, happier, and better-looking....surprising your kids that you used to be young and cool....not who you are today.
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The main reason to use a camera phone is that it's what you have on you when you see something photogenic.
Granted most people take pictures of trite garbage (I'm not judging!) so one wonders whether this approach substitutes quantity for quality.
Btw if you regret those old medium res pics, watch any movie with digital special effects from our college era. Even some of the wide shots from Lord of the Rings are starting to look strained.
It's not just a question of technology, it's what our eyes are used to s
It it's worth photographing, it's worth doing well (Score:2)
The main reason to use a camera phone is that it's what you have on you when you see something photogenic.
Without a doubt...if all you have is an iPhone, it's better than nothing. The same can be said of McDonald's. I hate their food and it's not healthy...so I cook and plan healthy meals. I do extra work to ensure I have something better than McDonald's. But if I'm hungry and McDonald's is all that's available, I'll eat it.
Similarly, I take my Canon 6Dm2 in my backpack in a padded case, so I can take a nice photo of my kids playing...or any place I want to take photos. It takes more effort, but it's wor
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whooo - I think McD's is poison, straight up.
Anyways, I agree about those 'good enough' people. They're basically feeding their soul with canned food.
I'm not sentimental, don't have many pictures of the past, but I do seem to have a knack for finding interesting ways to shoot things. I haven't updated it in ages but I have a food blog, https://theimportanceofgrapefr... [theimporta...efruit.net]
I hate the sterile look of many food blogs, and so am trying to develop my own style. Also interested in capturing empty street scenes due
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Just to add to this:
I took, on accident, the best photo I've ever taken, a by-happenstance truly gorgeous photo of my best friend while we happened to be sitting in a sushi restaurant just at the perfect moment of sunset. We were by a window and there was enough reflection to backlight her hair. From a technical standpoint, the light just at that moment could not have been better, and her facial expression was as genuine a smile as I could ever get.
I took the picture on my cameraphone, which had been set to
Re:Not work (Score:5, Insightful)
One of my very good friends worked for a large photography studio from age 17 to 28. She did candid photography at weddings, class and family reunions and later moved in to commercial portrait work and panoramic photos.
The truth is, you could hand her a flip phone from 1998 and she'd still take a brilliant photo. The art isn't improved by gear. Gear just makes it easier.
These days I have the unbelievable good fortune to have a couple enthusiastic models and easy access to some wonderful places to shoot (I live on the border of a national park and I'm 30 minutes from Chicago), so I've been, so I've been leaning on my friend for tips and advice.
1. Shoot a lot of pictures, whatever you do. She kind of qualified this by saying that the best camera is the one you have with you, and also that sometimes it's helpful to be constrained to a prime lens or something less than optimal.
2. Learn to handle light. Natural light is best because it's free, but multiple sources or reflectors make everything better. A flat piece of cardboard covered with aluminum foil or a bright flashlight inside a plastic bowl can both dramatically improve the light on a subject. Figure out light because it'll improve everything faster than gear will.
Bad or insufficient light leads to grainy, slightly blurry pictures. It's the scourge of good photography. Too bright is also a thing.
With that in mind, I usually have a flexible, USB-powered LED lamp wrapped around my camera strap as a light source beside my camera flash. It comes in handy all the damned time. I made it for about $30 worth of LED strips and some soldering but you can buy something like that for about $100. Small LED lights from companies like Aperture and Viltrox are easy to keep with your camera gear if you find yourself needing them.
3. Manual focus is often a lot of work and auto-everything is often sub-optimal. Learn to love Aperture Priority Mode. Wide Apertures are amazing for photographing single subjects, while narrow ones let us take beautiful, detailed photos of larger scenes. Learning what to use and when is very helpful on a technical level.
You'll most likely find a relatively wide and affordable lens for your SLR or Mirrorless camera with a 50mm-equivalent (35mm for APS-C or 25mm for micro 4/3) lens, and there's a really good reason photographers love those. Git Gud with that lens if you're buying anything that didn't come in the kit with your body.
Note that some cameras do have manual modes and at least some of these features. Samsung, LG and Apple all do. I think the Pixel cameras do as well. My LG G8 apparently has an F1.2 lens on the main camera. That's nothing to complain about.
Don't buy lenses unless you know why you're getting them. They're expensive and you may or may not need them. An 85mm F1.2 is amazing for dedicated portraits but pretty impractical to use for street photography, and a 17 - 135mm f4 - f6 lens is fantastic for just walking around during the day but basically useless at night.
4. Learn to pose. If you're directing models or normal humans, you need to have an idea of how to direct them.. This means different things for different kinds of people, but you have to be able to show them. Once you know, show and suggest, but do not order. Models who know what they're doing are a blessing here, since they've probably mastered all of the poses, but everyday people very often do exactly the least flattering things when they're having a photo taken, like hold their arms close to their bodies.
You also need to get people to hold their heads at proper angles. This is, in my opinion, the most difficult thing about shooting photos of human beings.
5. Photos don't have the be beautiful. They do need to be interesting. This applies to subjects and backgrounds both. A rooftop with a view of the Chicago skyline is automatically interesting, but the sharp, deep shadows of a multi-floor parking garage can be as well. Remember that if you're capturing a human subject, you can probabl
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I suspect you and I take very different sorts of pictures. I'm often shooting with human models for one reason or other.
Talented photographer, shitty camera: All I can say is that I have seen it done. IIRC there were a few photographers who did something similar with a "disposable camera challenge" on Youtube, which might be something to check if you don't think it's possible.
In general, shooting lots of photos does not mean that photos aren't planned or composed. Shooting lots of photos does often mean loo
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I do have a DSLR but rarely use it now, I mostly use my phone. ... lots of time the DSLR will win but for a casual like myself...
DSLRs (or SLRs) were never suitable for casuals.
There were periods when every Joe Sixpack had to have one even though he never changed the lens from the one it came with, and never took it off AUTO mode; he would have been better off with a point-and-shoot. But now Joe uses his phone camera, which leaves DSLRs for the serious enthusiasts and professionals. Phone cameras have mostly killed point-and-shoot cameras and the low end DSLRs (although there are still a few on the market like the Canon EOS 2000D
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For what it's worth, works if you live in Canada. Just signed in as from Canada and started watching....
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It is from Nikon USA and I am pretty sure you can't join with a non-US address or even IP.
just tried from Australia; you have to sign up but you can select "Other" as a country.
I could at least load the videos and it looked like they should be playing, but I couldn't find the magic combination of NoScript allows to make it work in Firefox in like 20 seconds of trying
awesome (Score:2)
ill just go out for a walk and invite some models over to practice! oh wait ..
Online PHOTOgraphy (Score:2)
Not online PORNOgraphy, which is how I read that headline despite my best efforts.
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But you can do pornography with photography!
I think I'm going to take the course, it's always good to have a backup career for when enterprise software is no longer needed after the apocalypse.