Photography A-Level camera

P

Photographer JM

Messages
1
Edit My Images
No
Hi
I will be starting a photography a-level in September and I want to purchase a good cheap compact system camera or a dslr something that I can change the settings on such as iso and shutter speed I am willing to spend £350 on a kit which comes with at least 1 lens.
Any reply would be grateful
 
Are you willing to go for second hand? If so, you could pick up a nikon d90 with a 18-105 for that. Or if your literally just starting out, a nikon d80 with an 18-70 and probably a 50mm f1.8d as well. At least that would give you a zoom with a good range to start with, and a prime with a fast aperture to start learning with.
 
Photographer JM said:
Hi
I will be starting a photography a-level in September and I want to purchase a good cheap compact system camera or a dslr something that I can change the settings on such as iso and shutter speed I am willing to spend £350 on a kit which comes with at least 1 lens.
Any reply would be grateful
Click to expand...

Grab something like a used Nikon D80 and kit lens. They go for around £200 on Ebay now. It has a proper manual set of controls.. meaning a separate dial for shutter speeds, and one for aperture. This gives very intuitive manual control without having to press buttons while turning dials. Get a hotshoe PC sync flash adaptor to use it with studio flash as well if your college has a studio... they're around £5 or so off ebay.

Get used to using the camera's light meter, and be prepared to experiment and practice using it manually, as my experience with A level courses is they'll not really give you much tuition on this, and be quite happy for you to shoot on auto... so buy a good book on the subject. Basic Photography by Michael Langford is a good book. I just checked on Amazon and it's still around.... not the cheapest book around though at £19, but worth it.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Grab something like a used Nikon D80 and kit lens. They go for around £200 on Ebay now. It has a proper manual set of controls.. meaning a separate dial for shutter speeds, and one for aperture. This gives very intuitive manual control without having to press buttons while turning dials. Get a hotshoe PC sync flash adaptor to use it with studio flash as well if your college has a studio... they're around £5 or so off ebay.

Get used to using the camera's light meter, and be prepared to experiment and practice using it manually, as my experience with A level courses is they'll not really give you much tuition on this, and be quite happy for you to shoot on auto... so buy a good book on the subject. Basic Photography by Michael Langford is a good book. I just checked on Amazon and it's still around.... not the cheapest book around though at £19, but worth it.
Click to expand...

Exactly this. My daughter is just coming towards the end of the same course and the tuition on the basics is non existent, so start reading. You could do worse than start with the above posters own thread on the subject [and don't be frightened by all the numbers, they make far more sense when you have a camera in your hand and can see what it all refers to ;) ] http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=440126


I would also say go 2nd hand, a Nikon D80 & kit lens will serve you very well, Beth has done the bulk of hers with my old Nikon D70s [slightly older, but still a very capable piece of kit] and a couple of film cameras I have lying around, and film cameras you can pick up very cheaply, if you stick with nikon ones, your lenses from the D80 will cross over. (y)
 
Thanks for linking to my own link.. LOL I forget I put that on here sometimes. (y)
 
You had to go and ruin it :)
 
Just to add that my daughters starting her a level photography too in September and has my old Canon 400D with the kit 18-55 and a 55-250 and access to my 50f1.8 when she needs it so all this should be more than enough for her.

I do worry about what the a level actually teaches as I suspected (as Yv confirms above) that there's little emphasis on practical application :-(

Don't suppose anyone has a link to the actual syllabus of the a level?
Ive googled but cant find one so don't know if it exists.
 
Remember it isn't just a camera and lens you'll need. If you can, get a spare card and spare battery, a tripod, a flash - and a good bag to keep it all together and protect it. Second hand is fine if you go to the right place.
 
Graulges said:
I found this from AQA for AS/A level photography. Apparently it's now a specification not a syllabus :)
http://www.bp6.org.uk/bpfotosite/
Click to expand...

You will notice the missing bit - NOTHING about how to expose correctly, compose well, etc etc....

appreciation of viewpoint, composition, depth of field and movement; time-based, through such techniques as sequence or ‘frozen moment’
Click to expand...

My experience, via daughter, is that they are not actually taught anything about how to do this.... :cautious:
 
or your daughter wasn't listening when they did cover it. Sorry, judging everyone by by own low standards when at school :)
 
Last edited:
Graulges said:
I found this from AQA for AS/A level photography. Apparently it's now a specification not a syllabus :)
Click to expand...



^This.

There's no guarantee what one A level course does, others do. It's like HE and QAA... they're just guidelines and specs, not a written curriculum like BTEC Diploma courses.


ernesto said:
or your daughter was listening when they did cover it. Sorry, judging everyone by by own low standards when at school :)
Click to expand...

My experience of interviewing applicants for BA, is that most A level courses are woefully inadequate for preparing students for degree study or work.

They rarely have any understanding of even basic exposure theory... can't answer simple questions such as "If your meter suggests 1/60th at f8, what shutter speed to you need for f5.6?". They can rarely name a photographer who influences or inspires them; they have invariably never been to a gallery or exhibition, read any books on the subject, or can give any reason why they have taken any of the images in their portfolio. Most don't really seem to have any great interest in photography to be honest.
 
Pookeyhead said:
They rarely have any understanding of even basic exposure theory... can't answer simple questions such as "If your meter suggests 1/60th at f8, what shutter speed to you need for f5.6?". They can rarely name a photographer who influences or inspires them; they have invariably never been to a gallery or exhibition, read any books on the subject, or can give any reason why they have taken any of the images in their portfolio. Most don't really seem to have any great interest in photography to be honest.
Click to expand...

Hate to say it, but my son is one of those. Swaying towards a degree that looks interesting rather than because he has any knowledge, motivation or purpose in actually doing it. I can see photography being a common candidate for that.
There does seem to be a pressure/brainwashing in the last 10 years that a degree is a must even if there is no real need for one or any planned outcome afterwards. And the cost is not even putting everyone off as they are told to not worry about that as you may never earn enough to pay it - what ambition!
 
ernesto said:
Swaying towards a degree that looks interesting rather than because he has any knowledge, motivation or purpose in actually doing it. I can see photography being a common candidate for that.
Click to expand...



It is.



Photography is easy.... just taking pictures innit! :)
 
My daughter is also starting Photography A level in September (although it will run alongside her other, GCSE, courses as she is at a grammar school and has had to take exams early, whole other rant there lol). Maybe we should start a "Parents of A level students" support thread ;)

From what i could gather at her options evening, her school seems to do pretty well. The teacher talked about teaching them to take the camera off of auto and think creatively, some of the current student's work looked promising and they have quite a few Nikon dslrs available for the students to use if they don't have access to a "proper" camera themselves.

Having no proper training myself i was tempted to ask if i could attend the lessons with her lol ;)
 
The implications running through this thread are that "education, education," has been dumbed down somewhat!

Blimey, who'd have thought it?

Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs!
 
It has been led by scorecard for many years and scorecards usually drive the wrong behaviours.
 
Pookeyhead said:
My experience of interviewing applicants for BA, is that most A level courses are woefully inadequate for preparing students for degree study or work.

They rarely have any understanding of even basic exposure theory... can't answer simple questions such as "If your meter suggests 1/60th at f8, what shutter speed to you need for f5.6?". They can rarely name a photographer who influences or inspires them; they have invariably never been to a gallery or exhibition, read any books on the subject, or can give any reason why they have taken any of the images in their portfolio. Most don't really seem to have any great interest in photography to be honest.
Click to expand...

Sadly this describes someone I know (in point of fact, her and a dozen of her classmates) who graduated last year with a 2:1 in photography. Seriously. I bounce between being mortified and being utterly disgusted at how little education they've received in exchange for the amount of debt they've acquired.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Pookeyhead said:
My experience of interviewing applicants for BA, is that most A level courses are woefully inadequate for preparing students for degree study or work.

They rarely have any understanding of even basic exposure theory... can't answer simple questions such as "If your meter suggests 1/60th at f8, what shutter speed to you need for f5.6?". They can rarely name a photographer who influences or inspires them; they have invariably never been to a gallery or exhibition, read any books on the subject, or can give any reason why they have taken any of the images in their portfolio. Most don't really seem to have any great interest in photography to be honest.
Click to expand...

I'm really surprised to hear this. I took A level photography as an evening class (South Cheshire College) and wrote about what I had to do here. All of the folks on our evening class could do what you said above quite easily apart from the metering question which would probably have an approximated answer. It's quite a shocking state of affairs that some people really don't bother...

As a group paying for the course, we took it seriously and got a lot out of it. There was a great deal of coverage of other photographers and the lecturer was always on hand to answer questions. He also said that our work (as an evening class) was far superior to the day students. I suspect this was down to the fact that we had to part with hard earned cash and thus put more effort in. Age probably had a lot to do with it too.

Like most arty subjects, a student gets out what they put in, and my feeling was (from chats with the lecturers) that the day students (in the majority) weren't that bothered.

Personally, I think it has improved my photography a great deal - but I always did "get" the technical side of things - it was the arty side where I fell down and other tog research really opened my eyes.

Ian.
 
Last edited:
Person wants to do A levels to give themselves a better start/chance of job.

Person chooses A levels that seem easier as lazy route. "Photography or physics, what do I choose?"

Person gets through A levels but didn't really take anything in as it was a means to an end.
 
ernesto said:
Person wants to do A levels to give themselves a better start/chance of job.

Person chooses A levels that seem easier as lazy route. "Photography or physics, what do I choose?"

Person gets through A levels but didn't really take anything in as it was a means to an end.
Click to expand...

I would agree with that. From what my daughter has said there are a lot of her friends taking photography fo just that reason, its an "easy" A level.

I'm hoping she will be different though, as she is hoping for a career in the Media, with a preference towards Journalism. So she is really looking forward to doing photography as it will add an extra element to her chosen career choice. She also has the bug from her Mum, and already knows the basics. The tutor is actually an art teacher, but is also an ex-photographer. So i would hope he is true to his word and teaches them more than just how to get by.
 
ernesto said:
or your daughter wasn't listening when they did cover it. Sorry, judging everyone by by own low standards when at school :)
Click to expand...

Actually, no, as the rest of this thread shows. However, at the first parents evening after the course started, I questioned the teacher about the lack of 'technical' instruction and he said they just don't have time for it within the curriculum - I later discovered they do have time to teach them how to be 'artistic' in photoshop though [use of inverted commas to show the very very loose use of the word artistic ;) ]
 
There's a massive amount wrong with A level. So much so I could probably write a paper on it given time and funds for research... which I will never get, as such research would be deemed against their own interests (even though we don't run A level courses in Photography.... we do run other FE courses).

A level should be more technical, as it will weed out those who merely think photography is taking pictures... an easy subject. It will prevent the people not serious from suffering the humiliation of people like me telling them that they are not ready for HE study when their tutors have told them that they are. It will save money in the long run, and it will build a foundation that will more firmly support what we try to do at degree level, and therefore ultimately be better for the industry.

While FE is run on an OFSTED led diet of process and measurable "achievement" statistics; While FE continues on the path of not actually allowing students to "fail" (that's a dirty word in FE, but you'd be amazed at how utterly useles you have to be in order to actually fail anything in a A level art & design subject), it is destined to do absolutely NOTHING to help students who feel they have a future in the arts.

I think I've mentioned this before, but we're seriously considering the need to have a year 0 on our degree course because it's just getting almost impossible to recruit students who meet the criteria we demand.

Does that sound like a system that is working to you? Me neither.

If anyone wants my advice... it's don't bother with A level. A BTEC Diploma in Art & Design (Photography) would be a better decision.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top