Nikon School courses
Discussion
I recently signed up to a Creative Seeing and Composition Workshop at the Nikon School in London. Cost £149 for a day and runs for a whole day 10-5. Info here.
Has anybody done one of these Nikon courses? What should I expect?
I'm proposing to take my D5100 and Tamron 18-270mm as this is the combo I most often use. I do have a 35mm 1.8 and a SB-400 Speedlight, reckon I should bring these with me too?
Has anybody done one of these Nikon courses? What should I expect?
I'm proposing to take my D5100 and Tamron 18-270mm as this is the combo I most often use. I do have a 35mm 1.8 and a SB-400 Speedlight, reckon I should bring these with me too?
My course was last Friday but I've only just had a chance to write this up.
The course was run in the Nikon Centre of Excellence very close to Oxford Circus by the editor of Advanced Photography magazine. Present were 9 or 10 other participants, all 30+ men. A variety of kit was in use but it was mostly D7000, D300, D90 and D800 so I had the least expensive camera and I was the only one shooting with a non-Nikon lens (I never did take my 35mm f/1.8 as I'd lent it to my brother). Everybody was a keen amateur who had been shooting for a couple of years to many decades.
The format of the course was to have a classroom presentation in the way of some thoughts on technique and to see some of the instructor's examples, then to go out and spend a couple of hours shooting and finally to edit and critique the photos after lunch. The plan was to go out and shoot some more but we got too engrossed in the feedback so we ran out of time. Whilst shooting, some stayed with the instructor but I walk fast and get distracted easily so I lost everybody! It did mean I shot in places nobody else found. It wasn't a great day for shooting as the light was rubbish (solid grey cloud) so we all did they best we could.
The instructor went through all of the shots we took person by person in a Lightroom catalogue and picked out some interesting ones (two or three per person). He'd comment and ask our feedback on these in terms of technique and composition and then briefly go and lens-correct, straighten, crop and colour correct to turn the out-of-camera street shots into more polished examples.
Finally we had a Q&A and another quick PowerPoint on basic editing.
Although I've been taking photos for a couple of years I've never had any tuition or feedback on what I've done so I found this very interesting indeed. I mainly took away these points:
[*] Pick a theme or project to concentrate on and you'll find you take more relevant photos. You can even chop-and-change during a shoot. He used diverse themes such as "litter" and "things that look like letters of the alphabet".
[*] Have patience; if you can visualise a photo sometimes you have to wait for the right person to walk along or the right scene to present itself. If you wait long enough you'll get the shot rather than firing off something quick which doesn't really capture what you want and then moving on.
[*]Edit; I've never done any real PP on my photos mainly because I didn't know what to do and I didn't have any software. It was enlightening to discover a couple of minutes in Lightroom and some really simple stuff can turn a busy street photo into something much nicer to look at.
I found the day very inspiring and has rekindled my interest. I've bought a copy of Lightroom and I'll now select only my best shots and take the time to edit them.
Finally to indulge myself, here are just three of the photos I took on the day which I thought came out pretty well (no particular order or theme):
Three Lamps by rubinho_uk, on Flickr
Call Me by rubinho_uk, on Flickr
Reflecting on Work by rubinho_uk, on Flickr
Thanks!
The course was run in the Nikon Centre of Excellence very close to Oxford Circus by the editor of Advanced Photography magazine. Present were 9 or 10 other participants, all 30+ men. A variety of kit was in use but it was mostly D7000, D300, D90 and D800 so I had the least expensive camera and I was the only one shooting with a non-Nikon lens (I never did take my 35mm f/1.8 as I'd lent it to my brother). Everybody was a keen amateur who had been shooting for a couple of years to many decades.
The format of the course was to have a classroom presentation in the way of some thoughts on technique and to see some of the instructor's examples, then to go out and spend a couple of hours shooting and finally to edit and critique the photos after lunch. The plan was to go out and shoot some more but we got too engrossed in the feedback so we ran out of time. Whilst shooting, some stayed with the instructor but I walk fast and get distracted easily so I lost everybody! It did mean I shot in places nobody else found. It wasn't a great day for shooting as the light was rubbish (solid grey cloud) so we all did they best we could.
The instructor went through all of the shots we took person by person in a Lightroom catalogue and picked out some interesting ones (two or three per person). He'd comment and ask our feedback on these in terms of technique and composition and then briefly go and lens-correct, straighten, crop and colour correct to turn the out-of-camera street shots into more polished examples.
Finally we had a Q&A and another quick PowerPoint on basic editing.
Although I've been taking photos for a couple of years I've never had any tuition or feedback on what I've done so I found this very interesting indeed. I mainly took away these points:
[*] Pick a theme or project to concentrate on and you'll find you take more relevant photos. You can even chop-and-change during a shoot. He used diverse themes such as "litter" and "things that look like letters of the alphabet".
[*] Have patience; if you can visualise a photo sometimes you have to wait for the right person to walk along or the right scene to present itself. If you wait long enough you'll get the shot rather than firing off something quick which doesn't really capture what you want and then moving on.
[*]Edit; I've never done any real PP on my photos mainly because I didn't know what to do and I didn't have any software. It was enlightening to discover a couple of minutes in Lightroom and some really simple stuff can turn a busy street photo into something much nicer to look at.
I found the day very inspiring and has rekindled my interest. I've bought a copy of Lightroom and I'll now select only my best shots and take the time to edit them.
Finally to indulge myself, here are just three of the photos I took on the day which I thought came out pretty well (no particular order or theme):
Three Lamps by rubinho_uk, on Flickr
Call Me by rubinho_uk, on Flickr
Reflecting on Work by rubinho_uk, on Flickr
Thanks!
Good stuff
_rubinho_ said:
That dude could be called Fitzroy Place..... _rubinho_ said:
Needs retitling to 'Reflecting on the weirdo pointing the camera at me whilst I watch some grotty vid my mate sent me'tenohfive said:
Needs retitling to 'Reflecting on the weirdo pointing the camera at me whilst I watch some grotty vid my mate sent me'
I was a little afraid he'd shout or chase me after he'd clocked what I was doing. I was only at 140mm so I didn't have that much of a head start! I'm glad he decided to stay and look cool. I only got one shot off though before strolling away. Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff