Improve your Photography

Module 1 is all about the basics of exposure:

• Shutter speeds, iso settings and apertures - what are they?
• How does your camera measure the light
• Why does it sometimes get it wrong?

These are the core skills that once mastered will remain with you for ever.

Exposure - or how bright/dark and image is. The three factors that affect are...

• Shutter speed
• Aperture
• iso setting

At the end of this lecture you'll understand what each one is, and why you need it.

Cameras have lots of 'automatic' modes, but they're all based around the four basic settings of:

• P - Program mode
• A - Aperture priority mode
• S - Shutter priority mode
• M - Manual

This lecture will outline the differences between them, and why each may be useful to you.

How does your camera know what exposure to set? This lecture will cover...

• Reflective and Incident light metering - what's the difference
• 18% Grey scale cards
• Why does automatic sometimes fail in bright light or dark conditions?

You'll learn through practical demonstration why your cameras automatic modes can be fooled.

How do the three factors that determine exposure interact with each other?

• Opening the aperture by one f-stop doubles the amount of light for the exposure.
• Halving the iso sensitivity makes the exposure half as bright.
• Doubling the shutter speed (i.e. 1 second to 2 seconds) makes the exposure twice as bright.

You'll learn about the linear way in which aperture, shutter speed, and iso work so that you'll be able to change them in conjunction with each other to maintain a correct exposure level.

A practical demonstration of exposure compensation and how it can be used to improve automatic modes, then a switch over to full manual mode! You'll see how there are several ways to achieve the correct exposure using different combinations of aperture, shutter and iso settings on your camera.

You may have seen the 'histogram' feature on your camera and wondered what it's all about! Well, wonder no more - This lecture will show you what it's for and how, together with something called 'flashing highlights', it can be used to check your exposure in tricky lighting situations.

A slideshow summary of the main points covered in Module 1 - Exposure

Getting the exposure right is important.... but you've also got to make sure that the right parts of your photo are as sharp, or as blurred, as you want. This module will show you how!

Why do photographers need so many lenses? What does focal length mean?

At the end of this lecture you'll know why you choose different lenses for different situations and how the 'focal length' relates to different angles of view.

Autofocus is great! But there's different settings... so which should you use?

At the end of this lecture you'll understand the different settings, and know which to choose for each photo.

How much of your photo is sharp? How much do you want to be sharp? That's the Depth of Field.

It's a powerful tool which enables you to draw attention to, or away from, different areas of your photo.

At the end of this lecture you'll understand how Depth of Field can be used creatively when shooting.

Three factors affect depth of field:

• The size of the sensor in your camera
• The focal length of the lens you're using
• The aperture your using to shoot the photo

At the end of this lecture you'll know which factors you can control, and their effect on Depth of Field.

The Hyperfocal distance is a simple, but often misunderstood, concept that once mastered is an incredibly useful tool when trying to maximise sharpness within an image. This simple slideshow graphic explains the concept in a way that makes it accessible to all photographers.

A practical demonstration of how Depth of Field can be controlled by selecting different apertures.

At the end of this lecture you'll understand exactly what a different the choice of aperture can make to the Depth of Field in your photos. You'll understand the zone of sharpness and how it can be positioned within your photos by selecting the correct aperture and focus point.

A slideshow summary of the main points in Module 2 - Lens Choice and Controlling Sharpness

Light! It's all about light! This module will show you how to control light, particularly in a backlit situation when your camera can easily be fooled.

You'll also learn how to set the correct white balance on your camera to achieve the result that you want.

Balancing light in a backlit situation is a skill thats vital to learn. This lecture is a practical demonstration of how to control the light using a reflector to achieve a balanced exposure using backlighting from a window.

You've probably seen professional photographers using their flashguns outdoors, and wondered why. Chances are, they were using a technique called fill flash, or fill-in flash. This is a practical demonstration of how to use fill flash when your subject is illuminated from behind.

Why do colours change in your photos when you use different lighting? It's all to do with the white balance setting on your camera. This is a practical demonstration of how you can match the white balance setting to the light source, and what happens to the colour when you don't!

A slideshow summary of the main points covered in Module 3 - Balancing Light and Colour