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Exposing Digital Photography (2015)

digitalphotography.exposed

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Re: Exposing Digital Photography (2015)

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask around in your local arts scene. Many professional photographers offer short courses to small groups of people. I agree this HES course's, umm, focus, is about camera engineering rather than how to use the camera. They could have mentioned how to use nice glass for composition. For example, mobile phone cameras are great. The best reason these days to schlep a CAMERA camera instead of a phone is the lens. Do you…

> You can put them in to black-and-white mode and their viewfinders show black and white. That's a great way for an amateur photog to learn to see light unconfused by color. FWIW, I think this is a bad idea in general. For digital photography, black and white conversion should be done in post, where you can both keep the color information in case you need it later, and where you can play around with setting different…

In a similar vein, not letting the camera do the B&W conversion in the viewfinder will train your eye to look for tonal differences and will help you see possible B&W compositions before you bring your camera to your face.

Re: Exposing Digital Photography (2015)

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask around in your local arts scene. Many professional photographers offer short courses to small groups of people. I agree this HES course's, umm, focus, is about camera engineering rather than how to use the camera. They could have mentioned how to use nice glass for composition. For example, mobile phone cameras are great. The best reason these days to schlep a CAMERA camera instead of a phone is the lens. Do you…

> You can put them in to black-and-white mode and their viewfinders show black and white. That's a great way for an amateur photog to learn to see light unconfused by color. FWIW, I think this is a bad idea in general. For digital photography, black and white conversion should be done in post, where you can both keep the color information in case you need it later, and where you can play around with setting different…

Fujifilm lets you do in-camera RGB filtering for black and white. Which is quite fun to play with!

Re: Exposing Digital Photography (2015)

#35
For those interested in very hands-on advise on using artificial light, the Strobist [1] blog is amazing. David Hobby is a working photojournalist and does fantastic work on-site. It's one thing to control light in the studio, but quite another to bring your flashes to a random site and improvise.

Hobby used to have a DVD set for sale which was probably the best money I've ever spent on photography stuff, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be available anymore. (It appears he's got some videos on Lynda.com, however.) I understand technical aspects of photography quite well but I learned a ton about creative, improvisational lighting from Hobby.

[1]: http://strobist.blogspot.com/

Re: Exposing Digital Photography (2015)

#36

For those interested in very hands-on advise on using artificial light, the Strobist [1] blog is amazing. David Hobby is a working photojournalist and does fantastic work on-site. It's one thing to control light in the studio, but quite another to bring your flashes to a random site and improvise. Hobby used to have a DVD set for sale which was probably the best money I've ever spent on photography stuff, but unfortu…

I second this. David's site opened my eyes to the importance of colour correcting the light coming out of your (off-camera) flashes for artistic effect, and a rough understanding of colour theory is what helps give images that extra "pop"

Re: Exposing Digital Photography (2015)

#37
post #7

This appears to be an (illegitimate?) republishing of a course that Dan Armendariz has taught at the Harvard Extension School since 2008. (The course number has since changed from CS E-7 to Digital Media E-10.) You can find the fall 2015 materials available online for free, better-organized and without advertising, at http://digitalphotography.exposed . If you find these materials helpful, or want feedback on your wo…

The link seems to have been changed to the one you provided[0]. I guess this was posted to another page, hosted by someone else taking credit for the videos and resources of the course?

[0] I was originally a bit lost at your comment and then connected the dots.

Re: Exposing Digital Photography (2015)

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask around in your local arts scene. Many professional photographers offer short courses to small groups of people. I agree this HES course's, umm, focus, is about camera engineering rather than how to use the camera. They could have mentioned how to use nice glass for composition. For example, mobile phone cameras are great. The best reason these days to schlep a CAMERA camera instead of a phone is the lens. Do you…

> You can put them in to black-and-white mode and their viewfinders show black and white. That's a great way for an amateur photog to learn to see light unconfused by color. FWIW, I think this is a bad idea in general. For digital photography, black and white conversion should be done in post, where you can both keep the color information in case you need it later, and where you can play around with setting different…

When my camera is in B&W mode, no data is thrown away. The raws are the same, still color. It may be different for non-canons, though I doubt it, and it is different if you are producing jpegs obviously.

Re: Exposing Digital Photography (2015)

#39

For those interested in very hands-on advise on using artificial light, the Strobist [1] blog is amazing. David Hobby is a working photojournalist and does fantastic work on-site. It's one thing to control light in the studio, but quite another to bring your flashes to a random site and improvise. Hobby used to have a DVD set for sale which was probably the best money I've ever spent on photography stuff, but unfortu…

Light Science & Magic[1] is another fantastic one which has a ton of practical studio lighting in great depth and a good high-level overview of a lot of the physics that drives it(polarizing filters, etc).

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Light-Science-Magic-Introduction-Phot...

Re: Exposing Digital Photography (2015)

#40
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fashionable to hate on him, but a lot of his advice is very good. The blog post you link to is quite silly and petty, honestly. A lot of people don't like to be told that their $5000 equipment is only slightly superior in terms of image quality to much cheaper equipment, but it's true.

The point is that he just tells you everything is amazing and to please buy it from Amazon so he can support his ever growing family. And sometimes his advice is good, sometimes it isn't but as a newbie you don't know which part you can trust and which one is one of his peculiarities. Therefore I would avoid following his opinions. His list of camera/lens specs is admittedly pretty good. And the other issue is that h…

> he just tells you everything is amazing

You can't even pretend that's true. Pretty much every new Nikon camera body review he puts out is a long list of 'this is exactly the same', interspersed with 'these useless numbers are bigger'.

The only recommendations I think he's given in the past 5 or so years is the D600, D7X00 for crop, and the D750 when that came out. Hell, in the reviews for later versions of a camera, he usually recommends to get an older model used. And for newbies, it's always the base model.

His monetization strategy is straightforward and transparent.

FWIW, I agree it's not a great place to point newbies, but the cynical/shill angle is too far.

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