Had my first "paid for" tutorial class.... bit weird...

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stratocaster72

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Hi

So i did a class last night, photography and studio basics and setup for beginners and semi pro's it was billed as.

Turned out a bit strange, the guy teaching was pretty good, knew his stuff and had some great pictures he had taken.
Venue was a bit odd for a studio, it was a shop front, not much room really, couple of small softboxes and bare bulbs for backgrounds.

I was intersted in the lighting part of it, but the first 2 hours were all the beginner stuff.
A few interesting things came up though, that id never heard before.

At faster shutter speeds colour and contrast are increased, better saturation for colours... is that true? I couldnt really figure out why that would be from a technical point, but happy to believe if it is true.

ISO: outside, raise ISO first before adjusting shutter or aperture to get more light. Again, i an see why, but seems a bit odd that you wouldnt find the best compromise of all three based on the picture.

Studio setup: His lights were 150 and 250 watt strobes, he told us to use f22 to make sure we didnt blow the highlights. I found it a bit underexposed and preferred f11 for the shots i took but it was getting a lot of blinkies on the specular highlights, i think this was more to do with the position of the lights, i moved them and it improved a bit. Oddly there was no instruction on where to put the lights other than "be creative".

Shutter speeds: dont hand hold less than about 1/200, raise ISO to make sure you get to this.

Canon: now this was weird. Next to me was a person using a basic Nikon (D3000 i think), and they were taking the same pictures i was for the studio part. We did some without flash to see what ISO we needed using just the modelling lights and ambient lights in order to get a decent exposure.
I was at f3.5, 1/90 and my ISO ended up over 2000 or so, whereas the Nikon seemed to get a better exposure at 800 ISO with i presume much the same for the other settings. He said this was because Canons were greedy with light and needed a lot more. Id not heard this before... i suspected it was either that i was slightly more focussed on the face of the model (who was dark skinned) for a portrait shot and possibly the nikon user was looking at the whole scene. I thought about metering but my metering shouldnt have mattered as i have set the Aperture and shutter at the best i could to get the most light...... so i only had ISO to play with.
is this true?

There were some good points about using fill light in photoshop and preventing fungus and getting colour balance (using the spydercheckr) right.

I think he was more film than digital oriented, he did spend a lot of time talking about the old ASA films and using ISO a lot over shutter speed etc, and that full frame was mostly better than crops.

Overall, it was mixed, i didnt really get the studio part of it like i hoped, a few interesting tips for landscapes, using a light tent (though he used the two softboxes with the diffuser removed to light it, seemed overkill and i was getting massive blow out until about f22 or more again).
 
Sounds like he is obsessed with fast shutter speed!

Hand holding is dependant on technique and steadiness of photographer so no blanket rule is there? I can definitely hand hold successfully well under 1/200

Colour and contrast better with higher shutter speed? Is that just because the light or ISO would need to be increased to allow the faster spped and maybe he thinks that will provide colour and contrast increases? Did you ask him what he based his theory on as I would have done (but then I am generally a pain in the arse when being taught anything!!)
 
Some odd stuff here. I don't do studio and different cameras do different things but ....

lower ISO produces better colour response, except perhaps in pro-spec kit where I would expect them to be optimised for journo/reportage.

f22 to reduce light ? just drop the ISO - proviso first point.

Aperture depends on lens spec, which may account for the difference in performace of the Canon/Nikon

It's end result that matters. Does it really matter how we all get there ?
 
Did he not use a light meter at all??

I've just done a local college 6 week course termed "Digital photography:Intermediate" and went there to see the tutor before signing up as I specifically wanted to learn a bit about lighting / portraiture and after a quick chat it was evident it was exactly what I wanted to do. So 6 weeks on and £75 odd lighter I've now got a little knowledge, enough at least to know that I will save up for a basic kit.

But one of the things that stood out was to always use a light meter to ensure you expose properly then there was the different types of lighting etc.

I enjoyed it, but what your describing seems a bit odd to me :-/
 
F22 means your not using the lens at it's best quality settng (usually a few stops down from wide open), plus they start suffering from difraction at this setting, it also means you can't alter DOF in camera.
 
....mmmmmmm!

Perhaps he didn't know how to alter the power on the flashes, and never thought about moving them further away. One thing is absolute - you won't find many studios using f22 to shoot portraits. (You won't find many photographers, other than macro people and large format guys, using f22, period).

Also f22 in itself will not stop you blowing the highlights, aperture setting is only one of the three variables that control exposure.

Are there any other courses you could consider?
 
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Sounds like a very eclectic night. :eek:

Some odd sounding things said that I had not heard before, the minimum shutter speed being one of them. Minimum shutter speed is dependent on obviously the available light, focal length and the steadiness of the user.


Imho you either do a studio class or a beginners class, trying to combine the two would irritate some, and confuse others. :eek: Just my 2p worth. ;)


If the OP thinks it was money well spent though, that's all that matters. :shrug: :)
 
It was cheap lol.

It was mostly too basic for me, I already know quite a bit about studio setup, I wanted to know more about different lighting configurations, new ideas... I ended up setting the lights up at this shoot, the assistant woman kept moving them further back saying they were too bright and had them set square on.

Oh well...
 
I've always heard the minimum most people can handhold at is 1/30s - obviously depending if your lens has VR and the focal length, plus how steady you are. Or it should be equivalent to your focal length (or x1.5 on a crop). Although that's not accurate for some people either.

Sounds like someone who's read a book and decided to make money by teaching a class without knowing what he's doing if I'm honest.
 
littlemonster said:
I've always heard the minimum most people can handhold at is 1/30s - obviously depending if your lens has VR and the focal length, plus how steady you are. Or it should be equivalent to your focal length (or x1.5 on a crop). Although that's not accurate for some people either.

Sounds like someone who's read a book and decided to make money by teaching a class without knowing what he's doing if I'm honest.
Click to expand...

Usually it's the reciprocal of the effective focal length you are using. So, for a 50mm lens, minimum will be 1/50th on a full frame, and that times the crop factor of a cropper (50mm lens on 1.5 crop = 1/75th, innit? :D).

This is only a guide, not a rule, but it's pretty solid advice. Anything less than 1/30th is going to be difficult to hand hold whatever you are using. In most circumstances it's better to up the ISO rather than drop the shutter speed if you've run out of aperture; a grainy shot is likely to be better than a blurry one, and anyway there is some damn good noise reduction kit around these days.

And I'm joining in with the bewildered cry of `what's all that f22 stuff about, then?`
 
I can kind of see why he's said to try and keep the shutter speed at 1/200th if it was a beginners class - It would almost guarantee a shot free from camera shake and eliminate that from the equation.

The other stuff seems bonkers to me, I NEVER used f22 in the studio - F8-F11 mostly unless I was going for something creative.

Agreed on the light meter, although I did watch one of the demos at the Lastolite stand a couple of years back at Focus on Imaging, with the guy preaching the importance of the light meter, spent ages metering each light separately, then, the last thing he did before taking a photo was move one of the lights back a foot or so, rendering all of his readings next to pointless :shrug:
 
Yes 1/200th would help a beginner but so would teaching how to hold camera, how to press shutter button gently without pushing camera down etc,.
And again, could have explained the dependance on focal length and so on.
Just because it was a beginners class doesn't mean you have to go that simple does it? Or if you go simple at least explain why.

(I am the first to point out I wouldn't make a patient teacher!)
 
Do you mind if I ask how much this course was?

Some interesting things taught, not all of them correct. Esp 200th second, Full sync speed is not always perfect and 1/160th is better be (on my 5d2 anyways) as reduces an issue that could occur with shutter in frame.

Also the issue of camera shake is a moot point if using flash as the light burst is way over the 200th second sync speed, which will eliminate camera shake.
 
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