Nikon School of Photography - Color, Light, Technology

Yesterday I wrote about my experience at the Nikon School of Photography.Today I attended a more advanced class about Color, Light and Technology. As promised, here is my take on the class. WOW! You get so much information, all for just $159.00. The instructors were Nick Didlick and Bill Durrence. Both were once again brilliant. They made the class entertaining and very informative. In addition to the class, they made themselves available to answer questions in between breaks and shared lots of information. The number of people attending was also half of those who attended yesterday. This contributed to the "I got my moneys worth" feeling you walked away with today. A lot of people who attended yesterdays introduction class returned for more. There were also quite a few professional photographers in the group. I would definitely recommend this class to those really interested in photography, the intermediate and perhaps even the pros.

Topics included:

• Planning and packing for a photo trip
• Importance of subject placement (spatial relationships)
• DX and FX sensors
• Speciality lenses and usage
• File format choices, focusing on RAW (NEF)
• Bit depth
• Image processing menus and advanced choices
• Color management (strong focus on White Balance): from camera to print
• Light: how to control and create with multiple live demos which included studio set up, filters, gels and use of reflectors
  
• Live demo of Nikon Capture NX 2 focusing on advanced editing features
• Resizing, sharpening and soft proofing for output
• Backup, Archiving and Cataloging
  
• Building a slideshow
• When to upgrade your camera and lenses
• Tripods and Monopods
  
• Overview of other Photography Workshops and Seminars
  

There were quite a few giveaways which included various training DVDs, one set of a monitor color calibration program by X-rite and two lucky attendees took home a full version of Nikon Capture NX 2. As always though, I didn't get anything. :(