Click, click - Photo class #1
Mar. 4th, 2010 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agt_spookyA few weeks ago I signed up to take a six-session, advanced digital photography course that's being held at the local high school and last night was my first class.
I've been interested in photography since I was a kid and always had a camera with me. I took all the photo classes I could in high school and later in art school, developing my own black and white pictures in the darkroom.
I love digital photography now, but ever since the hubby gave me that really high end camera for our anniversary last summer I wanted to learn more about all of the features and how I could become a better photographer.
Turns out signing up for this class is exactly what I was looking for.
There are 10 of us - 8 women and 2 men and we range in age from myself through several retired folks. And not surprisingly, we all have different cameras. Everyone seems very nice and open and friendly and I'm already getting along great with the ladies next to me, Mary, and in front of me, Joanne.
The instructor, Michael, is a nice guy. Funny and very knowledgeable, though he does like to talk and ramble on a bit. :-) He's got me pegged, which was quite amusing. He started off by saying, "You're all working on PC's right?" But of course I raised my hand and I'm like, "Nope, Mac." He gave this totally theatrical groan and I laughed and said, "Oh, don't start that!" He laughed, too, and replied, "Mac's are so...great!" Smart alec. :-)
As the class went on I answered several of his questions relating to photography terms, etc. I mean, I'm a graphic designer, so I know a lot about working with photos, especially in programs like Photoshop. What finally got him was when he was talking about burning, making areas of a photo darker. He's at the chalkboard, writing, his back to us and he says, "Anyone know what the opposite of burning is?" I answered, "Dodge," and he whips around saying, "Who said that?" I raised my hand and he laughed and said, "What are you doing sitting there? You should be teaching this class." Ha! So yeah, he and I are buddies now. :-)
We spent the evening going through this glossary of terms relating to digital photography, and as we did we looked things up in our camera's manual, then found out how to access different things (like the white balance controls) through our camera's menus. This is exactly what I was looking for - I need to know where all this stuff is located and what it can do. It was a very informative night.
At one point he asked myself and the other two ladies in my row to take out our memory cards and compare the different types. I've got an SD card, but the other two had much larger cards. He asked us each what the size of the cards were, and they each had 4 MB cards where I've got my super 32 MB card. One of the guys looks at me and goes, "Man, why do you need such a big card? How many photos do you take??" I smiled and said that my camera shoots and films in High Definition and that I also take a lot of video. At that point Michael became very interested in my camera, asking me what kind I had, especially after I told him that it has a CMOS chip instead of the more standard, lower quality CCD chip. (This was something we went over in class)
Tonight is my second class, where we'll finish going over the glossary, then on Saturday we start shooting, which is what everyone is waiting for.
Who knew going back to school would be so much fun! :-)
I've been interested in photography since I was a kid and always had a camera with me. I took all the photo classes I could in high school and later in art school, developing my own black and white pictures in the darkroom.
I love digital photography now, but ever since the hubby gave me that really high end camera for our anniversary last summer I wanted to learn more about all of the features and how I could become a better photographer.
Turns out signing up for this class is exactly what I was looking for.
There are 10 of us - 8 women and 2 men and we range in age from myself through several retired folks. And not surprisingly, we all have different cameras. Everyone seems very nice and open and friendly and I'm already getting along great with the ladies next to me, Mary, and in front of me, Joanne.
The instructor, Michael, is a nice guy. Funny and very knowledgeable, though he does like to talk and ramble on a bit. :-) He's got me pegged, which was quite amusing. He started off by saying, "You're all working on PC's right?" But of course I raised my hand and I'm like, "Nope, Mac." He gave this totally theatrical groan and I laughed and said, "Oh, don't start that!" He laughed, too, and replied, "Mac's are so...great!" Smart alec. :-)
As the class went on I answered several of his questions relating to photography terms, etc. I mean, I'm a graphic designer, so I know a lot about working with photos, especially in programs like Photoshop. What finally got him was when he was talking about burning, making areas of a photo darker. He's at the chalkboard, writing, his back to us and he says, "Anyone know what the opposite of burning is?" I answered, "Dodge," and he whips around saying, "Who said that?" I raised my hand and he laughed and said, "What are you doing sitting there? You should be teaching this class." Ha! So yeah, he and I are buddies now. :-)
We spent the evening going through this glossary of terms relating to digital photography, and as we did we looked things up in our camera's manual, then found out how to access different things (like the white balance controls) through our camera's menus. This is exactly what I was looking for - I need to know where all this stuff is located and what it can do. It was a very informative night.
At one point he asked myself and the other two ladies in my row to take out our memory cards and compare the different types. I've got an SD card, but the other two had much larger cards. He asked us each what the size of the cards were, and they each had 4 MB cards where I've got my super 32 MB card. One of the guys looks at me and goes, "Man, why do you need such a big card? How many photos do you take??" I smiled and said that my camera shoots and films in High Definition and that I also take a lot of video. At that point Michael became very interested in my camera, asking me what kind I had, especially after I told him that it has a CMOS chip instead of the more standard, lower quality CCD chip. (This was something we went over in class)
Tonight is my second class, where we'll finish going over the glossary, then on Saturday we start shooting, which is what everyone is waiting for.
Who knew going back to school would be so much fun! :-)
