Beginner Digital Photography, How Do I Use My Camera? (Udemy.com)

Awesome! This course is exactly what I was looking for - a shorter length, easy to understand yet thorough, true beginner's guide to the basics of photography and how to use my new Panasonic Lumix G85 camera. I learned so much about how my camera works to capture light, what aperture and shutter speed are, and how I can manipulate those setting in various ways. I now know when I should use the A and S priority modes, depending on the image style I want to create, and how these settings can allow me to get some really cool shots with just my kit lens. I also understand how the P mode is different from Auto, and how exposure compensation is a really simple way to adjust my image brightness, allowing my camera to choose aperture and shutter speed for me. I can't wait to dive into Part 2 by JP to learn even more basic principals of light and camera settings. I love his teaching style and feel confident with the tools and ideas I took away from this class. I now have a basic idea of what I am doing, instead of looking at my camera feeling overwhelmed and confused, and I know his concepts will continue to resonate as I move forward with my photography journey. I highly recommend this class for other true beginners!

So far, this course has been pretty helpful. I am eager to see how it'll come together the farther along we go. The exercise with the three photos with adjusted exposure compensation was very simple, but powerful. I just want to continue on!

This course is EXACTLY what I needed to understand how to approach taking pictures with my new Panasonic Lumix camera. PJ seems to have given a lot of thought about how to present basic photography concepts, and his emphasis on intuition, not memorization is perfect (I was a teacher before I retired, and I love his approach to learning). This is a great course for someone who wants to understand the basics of photography taught by someone who is able to share that information in a clear and encouraging way.

The instructor explained everything in easy to understand language. He made it easy to follow along step by step with my own camera, except for one thing that my camera didn't have, but his did. He shows many examples to help you visualize the look you should be going for. I wish there had been more homework activities to practice the different techniques. I am still unsure about M mode, but now I know how to use the other modes.

EXCELLENT job, JP! There are visual learners, audio learners and then folks like me...kinesthetic learners. I can watch and I can listen...but I learn best by DOING...so to that degree, your course was very useful. Having some "real world" exercises, with an expectation of what the learning point was, really helped cement things in my head. In watching some other courses, I found myself fretting about the minutiae...what aperture to use, what shutter speed to consider. Factor in ISO and it's easy for photographic noobies like me to get overwhelmed. JP's advice to take A picture first and then adapt accordingly from there was quite refreshing...so now I feel a bit more confident in bringing all these elements together, and taking better photos. If anything, add in some additional exercises!

After taking this course, I feel like I have a basic understanding of how to use my camera! I'm no longer intimidated of the all the all the buttons and options. The instructor used great analogies to explain photography which really help with my understanding of aperture, shutter speed and exposure. I also liked that fact that there were exercises to complete and there was a photo to compare my image to. I recommend this course for all beginners. =) Thank you so much!

Overall, this was a great course. For someone who struggles with classroom learning, this was an excellent style of teaching that included visuals and encouraged not to memorize but to understand concepts. I do wish there would have been a few more visuals, and I do wish there would have been more quiz pictures for the watcher to guess how pictures were shot, but other than that it was great! Thank you!!

I really enjoyed John as an instructor. He is easy to understand and kept a good pace. For someone just starting out with their first camera, no matter the make or model, this course has much to offer you. It will not do anything for the professional and it is not designed for that. I do feel, even though it is designed with the beginner in mind, it will serve as a good refresher for those just beyond that beginning stage. Great job, John.

A simple no frills course on photography by John Pullos is exactly what I was looking for. John does a terrific job of providing some fundamental of photography without making the viewer overwhelmed. I loved that he did not just provide charts to memorize, but rather he gave simple illustration to the concepts and provided a brilliant foundation to build upon. I got everything I wanted from this course and more and look forward to view more courses. Thanks John..

I've just gotten my first DSLR after trying to decide whether I was willing to get into "all those settings" and after getting it and shooting a few days on auto, starting thinking "maybe I don't need those other modes." But knew to get the most out of the camera and the best images, I needed to understand all the terms. Going through the manual and reading internet materials just left me more confused and feeling a bit dumb. JP made everything so easy to understand. After I watched Lecture 2, I was explaining exposure to my husband and showing him the differences. After completing the course, I now get shutter speed and aperture in a way I just couldn't before. Thank you so much!