Ask me any photography question

michelle

michelle

Active member
Haha, I'm not going to answer the questions. But, I'm going to be giving classes for photography for both people who use point and shoots and DSLRs. So, I want to know what other people struggle with. Technical things, composition, whatever. Let me know your questions!
 
oh boy, if you're teaching beginners get ready for a lot of weird questions. I guess the best way to learn is to teach though.
 
her portra icon. they actually discontinued VC and NC and made it just portra... which i guess is VC and NC at the same time or something.
 
Based on that logic, you could be a certified college professor teaching about Sponge Bob. Hey did you know he lives in a pineapple under the sea? Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!

And yes I am aware of Portra and its changes, though they haven't happened yet.
 
I understand, and I also understand this class is for beginners, but my question still stands.

And Spongebob, I know you were, but Ive found those that those who brag about equipment (icons included) and such tend to be the worst of the bunch. But Im just giving michelle a hard time, I liked some of her stuff. I felt that night time shot of a snowy corner was kind of cool. (outside your apt, right when you got that 5d I believe.) I really liked the opening shot in your food section, but didnt much care for the sports or people section though.

I assume the class is digital only? Id say they may have questions on focal length (what the numbers mean) What aperture is and how if affects dof. What ISO is. What all the buttons are on different models of cameras. How to use strobes. Just your standard stuff. Might want to go ahead and debunk what they think about MP (more is better.)
 
I remember when I using a manual camera, I understood how you could change aperture and shutter but I didn't understand why you would do one over the other. I would shoot photos however I could get the shot exposed right. That's a pretty good concept to teach beginners.

Another one would be focal lengths, for example, why one might choose a 80 mm lens over a 35 mm lens for a shot, even though you can fit the same subject matter in the frame with each lens by adjusting where your camera is.

I think those are two things that would have helped me a lot as a beginner.
 
i've shot with both portra VC and NC. or is this just me?
but the thread. Things like
What's the aperture?what does the aperture control?how do the shutter speed and aperture work together?what ISO means?Brief summary of lens types and why they are named so. a super curious camper will ask what a mm is. i dunno, i'm sure i can think of more.
 
what is the rule of thirds and why is it important to making a photo more interesting.
why/how do certain photos make your eyes move more and become more involved
 
when will nikon re-stock stores with D7000s?

haha but in all seriousness i think most of these guys have asked anything i would've asked. someone might ask why one would shoot in manual-focus when you can shoot in auto-focus, or when MF and AF are preferable. i think it would definitely be helpful for the students if you had a projector or a way of showing them the difference between a shot at say 1/10 and 1/100. good luck!
 
^Sean your photos suck. There I gave you crits now you give me karma.

But seriously don't spam threads with that shit.

Now to the thread at hand, I still get confused with F-stops and what the hell that all means. I have a general idea but going into that might be good for some of the students.

Also if possible stay away from any form of photoshop, and encourage getting the right shot the first time, and searching for the shot before taking any photos.
 
He said your photos fucking suck! Fight him!

jk. There was a spam post by "sean." or something that saying crit my photos +k! I guess it got deleted hah

 
wait was this the kid with the name Sean. ?
*Phew. for a second there i thought you guys didn't like me. I just want you all to like me.
 
Yeah he had a thread a day or two ago asking for crit. If you give me karmaz we can be efriends.
 
on this same note. The rule of thirds. Yes it is generally denounced by everyone on this site who uses a camera but it helps when you're learning.
 
It's denounced as the end-all formula for good art that some people make it out to be, but as a general, sometimes-useful guideline it's great. Anyways.

I'd definitely focus more on the technical side of things for intro courses. I think the biggest thing I noticed as a TA for an intro course was that students consistently underexposed their film, which made printing way way harder than it needed to be. Tied with that would be teaching the shutter/aperture/iso relationship, and how each affects the photograph. Once they have gotten a pretty good grasp of that aspect of the process, you can then start working on composition and concept.

I just use photography as a way for a bad artist to try to make art, so most of it ends up being technical for me.
 
i can second that the biggest thing would be to stress the relationship between aperture and shutter speed. how one effects DoF, the other the freezing of motion. i noticed way too many kids in the photo class i took that seemed to be completely oblivious to how it worked.
 
Well in the process of making it kodak pretty much did 1/[log(-1)(sqrt -2)(0)] while bonding two helium atoms together and created a black hole with natural tones yet vivid colors.

But when I had photo in highschool people just could not grasp the concept of how aperture and shutterspeed were related. Also don't just give them the rule of thirds, cause then everything will end up like that. Tell them to assess whether a centered comp or something else is better. Cause otherwise you'll get people who just throw stuff off to the side for no other reason than to satisfy the "rule" of thirds.

Also people were stuck on the idea that 400 speed was for indoors and 100 speed was for outdoors. I think people actually thought you couldn't shoot 100 indoors, like there was some force preventing the film from reacting with light indoors. I was like, that's called darkness, and a tripod+longer shutter may help you.

Tell them to explore the functions of their cameras. They may think you know every menu of every camera and such.
 
Light, light, light. One of the most key areas they should learn. What to expect, how to compensate, adjust, angle, not shooting, etc.
 
Teach them why their $5k DSLR will never match a 4x5 slide shot from a decades old camera!

not being entirely serious there, but film isn't obsolete, and it should be taught, especially if some of your students are interested in art photography rather than commercial photography.
 
my favorite one from when i took a basic photo class i heard someone aske:

" How can i use this flash to take a picture of the moon at night"
 
It's true. Digital is great and all, but it still doesn't even compare to film.

Also, teach them theory more than anything. Any fool can read a camera manual, the application of theory is what separates good photographs from bad ones. Things like line, gesture, form, composition, etc.
 
I always personally thought that the best way to learn composition was to shoot film (ie, limited exposures) with a prime lens.
 
I always felt painting provided the best insight to composition because painting is far more theoretically refined than photography.
 
tell them framing is not having some sort of frame around the subject. we had to do framing assignments when i took photo and half the people figured they could just put the subject in a doorframe and that would count as framing.
 
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