I finished all the lesson CDs for Unit 1 on Sunday and found Units 2 and 3 waiting at my doorstep when I got home from work Monday. How's that for timing? I took the comprehensive on-line test for Unit 1 and got my grade a second after clicking Submit. (I got an A+. I missed one question so I think it should be an A, but the results said 97% was an A+.)
I'm still not finished with Unit 1 as I have a "Live Action Training" DVD to watch that reportedly shows professionals demonstrating the topics discussed in the lessons, and there are 2 more CDs. One is a "NYIP Insider's Guide" titled How to Enter and Win Contests and the other is a "NYIP Business Series" for Freelance Opportunities which is accompanied by a 66-page booklet with the same name.
Then I have to submit 3 photo projects, but that may have to wait till spring as we are having a colder and snowier than usual winter and I'm a bit of a wuse.
It took about 12 hours to finish the lessons for Unit 1, but that doesn't count the research I did "outside class". The research was valuable and interesting, but probably not actually necessary as it appears topics are introduced gradually with subsequent lessons going into more detail.
01/29/11: I finished the video and the last 2 CDs. That brings the total time to 14 - 15 hours, but it took me a month to do those 15 hours.
January 25, 2011
January 23, 2011
Depth of Field
I've been researching Depth of Field (DOF) and Aperture and other things I was introduced to in my recent photography lessons. In the lesson on DOF, I was referred to DOFMaster to calculate DOF for different apertures to complete an exercise.
DOFMaster has an easy to use calculator that produces DOF tables based on your camera and the focal length of the lens. You can set it to give results in feet and inches, feet, or meters. You can also download the DOFMaster Depth of Field Calculator application if your computer has Windows® 95, Windows® 98, Windows® ME, Windows NT® 4.x, Windows® 2000, or Windows® XP operating systems. (Mine does not so I can't give any other information on this app.)
You can see a picture of how one photographer, Bernie Sumption, uses the DOFMaster DOF tables on his personal website. He created a table for each lens, printed them, and then laminated each table. This is a site worth visiting You'll find several articles for beginner photographers on Bernie's site and amazing pictures of the Sumptions trip from England to Australia. The last update was January 15th from the White Desert; it looks like salt instead of sand.
DOFMaster has an easy to use calculator that produces DOF tables based on your camera and the focal length of the lens. You can set it to give results in feet and inches, feet, or meters. You can also download the DOFMaster Depth of Field Calculator application if your computer has Windows® 95, Windows® 98, Windows® ME, Windows NT® 4.x, Windows® 2000, or Windows® XP operating systems. (Mine does not so I can't give any other information on this app.)
You can see a picture of how one photographer, Bernie Sumption, uses the DOFMaster DOF tables on his personal website. He created a table for each lens, printed them, and then laminated each table. This is a site worth visiting You'll find several articles for beginner photographers on Bernie's site and amazing pictures of the Sumptions trip from England to Australia. The last update was January 15th from the White Desert; it looks like salt instead of sand.
January 22, 2011
NYIP Unit 1, Lesson 3, continued
I finished Lesson 3 last Saturday. In my opinion I didn't learn as much about "The Lens" as I should have. The conversational type lessons are easy to listen to and hold my attention fairly well, but I think I'd prefer a little more lecture with the conversation. Another instructor joined Chuck and Missy for the end of this lesson. I didn't catch his name, but he's very experienced. I am probably learning more than I think I am by listening to the professionals discuss what they do, but only time will tell how much I'm absorbing. Not counting my self-assigned research, this lesson took a little over 2 hours.
I started Lesson 4 this morning on How to Use Your Camera with the same 3 instructors mentioned above. Again I feel like I would prefer more lecture even though the conversation was quite interesting. I got lots of pointers on what the professionals do, but as a rank beginner I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet.
The lesson books/booklets are very nice. They are more like glossy magazines than text books. They are well illustrated, both with drawings and pictures, and are easy to read.
[Update 2/23/2012: Not all of the booklets I received were like "glossy magazines". Some of them were 20 - 30 years old with no color. They were not all the same size but all fit into the included slipcover (except for the pdf lessons should one want to print those). NYIP should have more of the booklets updated by now.
Booklets for lessons 1 - 6, 8 - 11, 13 - 15, Unit 5 (2 lessons), and Unit 6 (3 lesson) were from 2008 - 2010, with lessons 7, 12, Unit 5 (3 lessons), and Unit 6 (2 lessons) from 1978 - 1995 ] and 6 lessons from Units 3 - 6 as pdf files. There were 3 "Updates" booklets for Units 4 - 6. Some of the booklets are labeled with the lesson number, some are not.]
As nice as the lesson books are, I think I want to supplement them with a book specific to my camera, but there are so many books available for the Canon Rebel T2i that I can't decide which one(s) to get.
I started Lesson 4 this morning on How to Use Your Camera with the same 3 instructors mentioned above. Again I feel like I would prefer more lecture even though the conversation was quite interesting. I got lots of pointers on what the professionals do, but as a rank beginner I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet.
The lesson books/booklets are very nice. They are more like glossy magazines than text books. They are well illustrated, both with drawings and pictures, and are easy to read.
[Update 2/23/2012: Not all of the booklets I received were like "glossy magazines". Some of them were 20 - 30 years old with no color. They were not all the same size but all fit into the included slipcover (except for the pdf lessons should one want to print those). NYIP should have more of the booklets updated by now.
Booklets for lessons 1 - 6, 8 - 11, 13 - 15, Unit 5 (2 lessons), and Unit 6 (3 lesson) were from 2008 - 2010, with lessons 7, 12, Unit 5 (3 lessons), and Unit 6 (2 lessons) from 1978 - 1995 ] and 6 lessons from Units 3 - 6 as pdf files. There were 3 "Updates" booklets for Units 4 - 6. Some of the booklets are labeled with the lesson number, some are not.]
As nice as the lesson books are, I think I want to supplement them with a book specific to my camera, but there are so many books available for the Canon Rebel T2i that I can't decide which one(s) to get.
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