Open University photography course

http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?C01T189

I have realised that I have 50gb worth of photos I have taken with my Panasonic FZ7 and I don't have a clue about all the advanced stuff on it.

Does this course look ok? I already have Photoshop elements 5 but apart from that?

 

It seems unecessary - there's any number of photography tutorials on the web and in books. Many professional photographers have had no formal teaching on the subject - for instance do a search for "Hugo Philpott" - he's a guy who went to my school, and came out with two Ds at A-level and so went off and became a photographer and he's now pretty successful.

I'm not sure what the aim of spending that much money would be?

 

Party education for education sake, I have not studied for a couple of years and I can feel my brain getting lazy, so writing assignments etc will help me do this.

I think with self study guides I won't have the same motivation. It is a lot of money though.

 

I think you might find this avenue fiercely competative......

........not a reason for not doing it but have you got soemthing others haven't?

 

use the manual setting - on a nice day have the f stop at f5.6, adjust the setting so that the indicator on the middle bar sits at around 40-50%...

here's on I did earlier...
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1022/1401617953_2cc0e3e262.jpg

post some pics us thzt you like, want advice on etc...

 

why not call the OU and speak to one of the tutors?

Of course, I can drive 5 minutes from my house to the OU headquarters and do that, but not everyone lives where I do

 

Just some stuff I already have on the web (I have much better stuff but will upload that later)







Ideally I want to start creating some night shots e.g cityscapes with sunsets etc.

 

I like the idea of party education.

 

Why not just buy yourself a cheap tripod and have a go then, or a cheap SLR or if you can run to it a digital SLR so you can play with the settings.

 

they also do car maintenance courses

 

My existing camera is SLR style has all the manual controls of an SLR just the lacks the lens reflex system.

 

It's what's known as a bridge camera AT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_digital_camera

 

Try looking at Flickr it rocks.

 

It has been replaced now as its only 6 megapixel but it does the job fine for my needs.



I won't be moving up to an SLR for at least a couple of years. It has Leica lens and 12x optical zoom so it should be more than good enough for me. I have 50gb worth of photos taken with it

 

I would suggest approaching things from the composition side rather than the technical side. Your camera is fine (in fact better than fine), the exposures it gets are fine. You can forget about it - it is in no way a limiting factor. The area to concentrate on is what you point it at.

The first thing to do is to find some photos / photographers that you like, analyse their work and figure out why you like it. Think about where the subject sits in the frame, think about everything else that appears in the frame - figure out the relationships between these elements, the shapes they make and learn to apply similar techniques to your own work. Far too many people get hung up on the kit. It is largely irrelevant. A good photographer will get superb results with the most primitive of cameras – all that matters is subject and composition.

Tony.

PS There is an excellent picture of the week thread over on pfm here, join in, we have quite a few truly excellent photographers. I’m finding it a great learning experience and the pressure of trying to produce something worth showing every week is a very good motivator.

 

Excellent advice, from a man who takes some genuinely stunning photos. You should have a look at that thread AT

 

Good advice from tony.
Also the advice about getting a tripod os worth taking on board. Fix your camera to it and go for a wonder.

As well as the PFM thread, there's various forums and sites that set weekly assignments and such. It's good to have a theme to work towards.

 

yeah, a few colleagues use worth1000.com - they have competition based on themes...

I just use flickr myself -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/weardaleone/sets/