Shortly after attending CDFP 383: Digital Capture I for the first class at Ryerson , I looked into what CDFP 384: Digital Capture II was like. In the end, I decided that I’d be better off struggling to catch up, rather than coasting for the new bit of knowledge. With my former instructor’s blessing, I switched.
I’ll jump ahead a little here. For readers making the same decision between Digital Capture I and Digital Capture II, I would say the key criteria are:
- Can you use your DSLR camera “properly”?
- Do you routinely think about what makes for a good picture when taking pictures?
A test for #1 would be if you know how to set “Aperture Priority”, “Shutter Priority”, and “ISO”, and why you might.
A test for #2 would be whether you’re the shutterbug in your social circle, and whether you experiment with using your camera in different ways.
I got my first DSLR (Nikon D40) a couple months before starting the course, but I’m pretty good at reading manuals, and my previous point-and-shoot had priority modes that I experimented with. I also read a lot on my own online. Choosing Digital Capture II was a good choice for me, and I was particularly happy with the instructor, Rob Davidson. Rob has a blog here: http://robsinlight.wordpress.com/. Rob’s a wonderful teacher, a great mix of knowledge, experience, and passion for the subject, with the right touch of eccentricity and humour.
First, the course outline (in brief):
- Photographic Composition
- Using Adobe Lightroom
- Understanding and photographing Light
- Introduction to Studio Lighting
- Review first two Assignments
- Lighting for Still Life
- Portraiture: Lighting and Photographing the human face
- Portrait shooting session
- Retouching for portraiture
- Understanding and creating the B&W image
- Shooting B&W
- Photoshop & Lightroom workflow
- Photoshop Techniques
- Studio Visit and Assignment review
Rather than try to recall and go into detail about each class, I’ll simply talk about the parts that were most memorable for me.
The first lesson, on Composition, was an eye-opener for me. It was instructive to simply go through pictures, and have the instructor point out specifically the aspects of the picture that made it interesting. Combined with the subsequent class on Light, which followed a similar show-and-tell format, I was immediately educated to take pictures for my first couple assignments. I think from simply having someone describe clearly what I’d only vaguely and primitively understood in my mind, helped a lot.
My first couple assignments:
http://flickr.com/photos/relgar/sets/72157608210928338/
The middle set of classes, on shooting in studio for still life and portraiture, was interesting b/c I’d never been in a studio environment before. The lights were tungsten, i.e. incandenscent/hot lamps; flash use is not covered in the course. The class overall had fun in these sessions, experimenting with lights, and working with each others’ subjects. The portraiture class, with its use of live subjects, was quite a different experience for me; most of the class had no problem, but I had a hard time. The instructor’s talk about needing to “establishing rapport” with the model was quickly understood more clearly. My pictures from that session were just terrible; I’ll omit them.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/relgar/sets/72157608555414185/
Unfortunately, I missed both sessions on Black & White, to my regret. Good black&white pictures aren’t as easy as just hitting “desaturate” on a picture manager. I would’ve liked to understand more precisely what I should be trying for in black&white that’s different than colour pictures.
The last few sessions focused more on the use of Adobe LightRoom 2 and Adobe Photoshop. We covered the basics, e.g. cropping, white balance, colour adjustments, etc. It was somewhat expected that the students would read/learn on their own, too, though. The Photoshop classes were probably one of my favourite classes, as they covered how to make common problems, e.g. red eye, skin imperfections, dark circles under the eyes, people blinking, removing objects from the scene, etc. The way it was taught also provided the foundation for figuring out how to fix other kinds of problems, as I later discovered; a credit to the instructor.
BTW, LightRoom2 and Photoshop are expensive, but Ryerson’s campus store sells these products at student discounted price (much cheaper!). Also, whatever other software products you have and use, for purposes of this class it would be better to use LightRoom 2 and Photoshop. It’s what the instructor uses to explain things. FWIW, I use Bibble and Gimp, but I have what might be described as “special needs” (or perhaps “obstinate mindset”), and fully realized the potential for self-inflicted misery in trying to translate the course instruction for alternative software tools. Personally, I didn’t find it too onerous, but I’m a pretty computer-oriented person, to say the least. 
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the course, as much the material as the way the instructor taught it. One last remark about the course: an oft-repeated mantra was “good photographs are determined by the 6″ behind the viewfinder, not the 6″ in front of it”, in reference that a better photographer was far more important than better equipment. As I start down the road of this popular hobby, a minefield of expensive “must-have” gadgets and their add-ons, I’m trying to keep that in mind!
