Nikon School

Wow, what an experience! Nikon School is back in business, that's for sure. The course was taught by two professional photographers, Bill Durrence and Reed Hoffman.

Day 1
The first day was packed. There were 300+ people int he auditorium. But the screen was big and the audio system well setup so it really wasn't a problem. My biggest complaint was the chairs. The hotel chairs put my butt to sleep after about an hour. They were awful. But you gotta suck it up if you want to get the knowledge, right? So the first half of the day was mostly on photographic theory and the interrelationship between ISO, f-stop and shutter speed. They did a fantastic job explaining how "stops" work and what the relationship is between these three critical forces in determining how exposure is handled.

The afternoon session covered some basic aspects of the Nikon software and how it works together. They talked a bit about color management but it was pretty basic.

Day 2
The second day was the meat of the program. We started off talking about light and how light can be manipulated to enhance your photographs in a variety of ways. We learned how to use multiple flashes to turn an awful picture into an artistic one.

We learned about color management and how important it is to calibrate your screen when working with digital images. Then the rest of the day we worked with the Nikon Capture NX software (download a 60 day demo here). I learned a ton about how to do image manipulation to enhance and bring out the parts of the photography you want to enhance and how to tone down areas that need it. I learned about how to construct a good workflow for photo management and how to throw away pix you aren't going to use.

The class was totally worth the cost. It will definitely make me a better photographer. Anyone interested in learning Digital SLR technology or how to enhance and improve your digital photos will benefit from this class.