Photography Courses

[daveb]

I have noticed several sites offering various day or more photo courses, does anyone have any experience or could recommend any others?

I have found http://www.photographersonsafari.com/ and http://www.peakphotocentre.com/ so far just considering something different and the opportunity to get good tuition to get more out of my camera.... even if its not a full blown SLR

[rutty]

I've been on one of the photography courses with Going Digital at Clumber Park. Most people had dSLRs but one guy had a bridge camera - taking a compact would probably be a waste of time as they cover lots of manual mode work.

Very good course for a budding amateur. They cover all sorts of techniques to show you how to get the best of the features of your camera. Some death by powerpoint, but lots of practical too.

[sickpuppy]

Your best bet might be to see if their are any photographic clubs near you. These are usually much cheaper and have a wide skill range of members with cameras from compacts up to pro SLRs.

You'll find the more knowledgeable members are more than happy to offer advice.

Check the member section of http://www.pagb-photography-uk.co.uk/ for clubs.
If you are in Ireland then it's http://www.niphoto.co.uk/ for the north and http://www.irishphoto.ie/ for the south.

[slaughteredlamb]

I would recommend finding a photo club in your local area. Do you know any other photographers in your area as they might be willing to offer some training?

One pro I know who lives in the Kent area used to run training courses and offered 1:1 courses too which many people used but unfortunately he has had to stop these as his 'actual' photo work has gone through the roof and he no longer has the time.

I must admit I've often thought about running courses myself aimed at 'Joe Blogs with a compact' who just wants to learn to take better photos and others aimed "The Amateur Enthusiast" who has a bridge camera or DSLR but doesnt really know how to use it properly and wants to learn about exposure, composition, white balance, RAW etc. The main reason why I haven't started doing this, apart from the fact that if you want to have several people in a 'class' you need money up front in order to cover your set-up costs, is that I'm a bit lazy 

[daveb]

I dont know of any local clubs or photographers but I am still asking about and looking around for any.
Something like Going Digital looks ideal as a lot of places like Jessops and countless others are just theory in a room instead of guidance, shooting a subject then some review time afterwards for the same price or more than Going Digital.

There seems to be a market for it as most courses online even classroom based seem to be full for the next few months.

I have a Canon G7 which should be good enough as it has a manual mode as well although you can borrow a 350D if you ask it seems. I have a good  camera book but have just been lazy to go out and take pictures with different settings to compare, and have for my sins used Auto even though very happy with the pics so far.