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135 Best + Free Photography Courses & Certificates [2026]
Ranked by Michael Kuhlman, CourseDuck's founder, from student reviews across every provider. How we rank
Our top picks
- iPhone Photography | Take Professional Photos On Your iPhone [Udemy]
- Photography Fundamentals for Beginners: 1-Hour Crash Course [Udemy]
- Photography: Ditch Auto - Start Shooting in Manual [Udemy]
- Beginner Nikon Digital SLR (DSLR) Photography [Udemy]
- Mastering Architecture and Real Estate Photography [Udemy]
- Digital Photography for Beginners with DSLR cameras [Udemy]
- Your Road to Better Photography [Udemy]
- Beginner Canon Digital SLR (DSLR) Photography [Udemy]
- Food Photography: Capturing Food in Your Kitchen [Udemy]
- Complete Photography Masterclass: 21 Courses in 1 [Udemy]
About the best Photography courses
Learn photography with this comprehensive list of the web's best photography courses, ranked by 1,000+ student reviews.
Frequently asked questions
- Udemy and Eduonix are best for practical, low cost and high quality Photography courses.
- Coursera, Udacity and EdX are the best providers for a Photography certificate, as many come from top Ivy League Universities.
- YouTube is best for free Photography crash courses.
- PluralSight, SkillShare and LinkedIn are the best monthly subscription platforms if you want to take multiple Photography courses.
- Independent Providers for Photography courses & certificates are generally hit or miss.
Photography has been used throughout history and into the present day as a tool for science and exploration; as a means of documenting people, places and events; of telling stories and recording histories; and as a mode of communication and critique in our increasingly visual culture.
- Average
- $81,962 a year
- Full range
- $11,000 to $401,500
Share of US job postings in each pay band; the dark bar holds the average, the striped bar the 25th percentile. Source: ZipRecruiter salary data, gathered when this guide was first published in January 2021.
Yes and No. Certified Photography developers on average make more money. Having a Photography certificate greatly increases the chance of landing an interview and can open otherwise closed doors. Coursera, Udacity and EdX offer excellent certificate options for impressing your future employers. Eduonix, Udemy and several other providers offer certificates, but they aren't as reputable. If you have a Computer Science Degree, certificates are not as important. Still, many employers won't care about certificates, but rather your interview skills, experience and/or skills assessment.
Provider
University
Tags
Rating
Duration
Difficulty
Publication Year
Language
135 Filtered Courses
Sponsored
Photography Masterclass: Your Complete Guide to Photography (2026)
4.7
Phil Ebiner's 121-hour beginner photography course: 702 lectures from exposure basics to a dozen genres and Lightroom, rated 4.6 by nearly 79,000 students.
Best for: Absolute beginners with any camera, even a phone, who want one course that covers settings, gear, a dozen genres and Lightroom.
Pros
Cons
-
- Presenters feel like friends explaining things, and reviewers say their camera settings finally made sense.
- Free 276-page printable guidebook, Lightroom presets and a student community come with it.
- Still being updated as of September 2026, with new lessons and weekly photo challenges.
- Covers real estate, travel, drone, product and wedding work, not just the basics.
-
- About 43 of the 121 hours are student photo critiques, which some reviewers found padding.
- Background music, typos in articles and a buggy assignment uploader come up in reviews.
- Editing is taught in Lightroom only, so it is not a fit if you use Affinity Photo.
1
iPhone Photography | Take Professional Photos On Your iPhone (2023)
4.5
An 83-minute crash course from a YouTuber who shoots for a living on his phone: composition, light and Lightroom editing, with no camera gear needed.
Best for: Complete beginners who want a few composition and editing rules to try on their phone this weekend.
Pros
Cons
-
- Gets to the point: 27 short lectures with no filler, according to reviewers
- The 30-minute Lightroom mobile editing section is the part some students found most useful
- Teaches on a free app and a phone, so there is nothing to buy beyond the course
- A quiz section that one reviewer says showed him what he had learned
-
- Last updated February 2023; iPhone 14 and 17 owners report settings like HDR are no longer where he shows them
- Very basic; one two-star review says the tips could be googled in ten minutes, and others want more shooting examples
- Over a third of the runtime is Lightroom editing, and one reviewer got no reply to a Lightroom question
2
Photography Fundamentals for Beginners: 1-Hour Crash Course (2024)
4.6
A 90-minute walk through aperture, shutter speed, ISO and composition that about 154,000 students have used as a first stop before a longer photography course.
Best for: Total beginners who leave the camera on auto and want the exposure triangle explained in one sitting.
Pros
Cons
-
- Explains aperture, shutter speed and ISO in plain language; several reviewers say it finally clicked
- Roughly 50 minutes of actual instruction, easy to finish in one sitting
- Works for DSLR, mirrorless, point-and-shoot and phone users; no gear or prerequisites required
- 4.6 rating from about 9,600 reviews, with 5 and 4 stars making up the large majority
-
- 42 of the 93 minutes are a photo contest review, not teaching
- Too elementary for anyone past auto mode; no assignments or practice steps
- Composition gets about 15 minutes across two short sections
3
Photography: Ditch Auto - Start Shooting in Manual (2021)
4.5
A free, four-and-a-half-hour walkthrough of shutter speed, aperture and ISO from a working wedding photographer, aimed at DSLR owners stuck on the green auto dial.
Best for: DSLR owners who understand nothing about exposure yet and want a working pro to talk them through the dials at no cost.
Pros
Cons
-
- Free, with 4.7 hours split into seven short sections and five quizzes
- Reviewers say the shutter speed, aperture and ISO explanations are easy to follow
- Taught by a working wedding photographer, so the people and flash advice comes from real jobs
- Several reviewers say they were shooting in manual for good by the end
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- Long stretches of the instructor talking to camera, with few on-screen demos of settings or results
- Frequent ums and a dry delivery; one reviewer counted 50 in two lectures
- Last updated in 2021 and first published in 2013, so some of the gear on screen may be dated
4
Beginner Nikon Digital SLR (DSLR) Photography (2014)
4.7
A 71 minute, Nikon-only walk through exposure, aperture, shutter speed and the mode dial, taught by doing rather than memorizing, with 34,000 students behind it.
Best for: Nikon DSLR owners who have never left Auto and want the mode dial explained in about an hour.
Pros
Cons
-
- Learn by doing: exercises on your own camera replace memorizing settings charts
- One reviewer says he felt more confident changing settings right out of the gate
- Short and focused: one section, seven lectures, about 71 minutes of video
- 4.7 rating from more than 7,000 reviews, with 34,000 students enrolled
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- Last updated in April 2014, so more than a decade old with no updates since
- Reviewers call it a bit short, with one wanting more on hardware and camera symbols
- Only exposure and modes; no composition, lighting, focus or editing
5
Mastering Architecture and Real Estate Photography (2024)
4.4
A working pro's 20-hour course on lighting, shooting and editing homes and commercial interiors for agents and builders, aimed at photographers who already know their camera.
Best for: Photographers with a camera, tripod and flash who want to sell real estate and architecture shoots as a business.
Pros
Cons
-
- Lighting lessons for interiors that one reviewer rates as the best they've seen on the subject
- Explains why a shot is failing and what causes it before showing the fix, drawn from real client jobs
- Full Lightroom editing series added in a 2021 update, plus a section critiquing a student's real estate photos
- Practice photos to download and a 20-hour syllabus covering exteriors, interiors and commercial properties
-
- Older videos look dated and one low-star review calls the picture quality poor
- Editing sections run long and repeat similar adjustments room by room
- Leans on flash and lighting gear and expects intermediate camera skills; nothing on shooting listings with a phone
6
Digital Photography for Beginners with DSLR cameras (2023)
4.5
Learn how to take stunning photographs by mastering both the technical and creative sides of digital photography.
What You'll Learn
- Instructions on how to hold your camera correctly, which will help you to get sharp photographs.
- Sound advice on how to choose the right camera lens for each situation.
- The necessary confidence to change the most important camera settings correctly at the right time, which will allow you to get perfect photos every time.
- The ability to compose photos that are well balanced and very pleasing to the eye.
- The skill to spot creative photographic opportunities that will make your photos stand out from the rest.
- The ability to take stunning photographs that tell stories of your vacations, adventures and functions, capturing memories in the process.
What You'll Learn
- Operate the Camera in full Manual Mode
8
Beginner Canon Digital SLR (DSLR) Photography (2014)
4.4
Learn how to use your camera intuitively. Learn through doing rather than memorizing.
What You'll Learn
- You will learn how to see your images in a more sophisticated way, like a professional photographer.
- You will add exposure to your photographer's tool belt and learn how it impacts many visual elements of your images.
- You will learn how to adjust your aperture and why you would choose one aperture over another.
- You will learn how to adjust your shutter speed and why you would choose one shutter speed over another.
- You will learn how all of the modes (Auto, P, S, A and M) work and when you should be using each mode.
- You will learn to recognize the difference between depth-of-field blur and motion blur.
- You'll start spending more time observing and capturing beautiful moments around you, rather than staring down at your camera feeling confused.
9
Food Photography: Capturing Food in Your Kitchen (2026)
4.7
With DIY Food Photography, you'll be taking better photos in no time with what you have in your own kitchen!
What You'll Learn
- Take beautiful photographs of food in your home.
- Compose a variety of mouth-watering food photographs that tell your food's story
- Create a unique setting and style for your own food photography
- Control natural light in your home to shoot better photographs
- Edit your food photographs to make them look even better
10
Complete Photography Masterclass: 21 Courses in 1 (2025)
4.5
Master Photography: 21-in-1 Photography Bootcamp Beginner to Pro Learn DSLR Camera, Composition, Lighting, Editing etc
What You'll Learn
- Photography concepts, Exposure Triangle, ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture
- Advanced photography concepts, Histograms, Light Metering, RAW format
- Practical projects with Photo Editing, Adobe Lightroo, Adobe Photoshop
- How to earn money through stock photography
- Photography, Digital photography DSLR photography
- Will do practical projects in HDR and Night Photography
- Photography for beginners, photography masterclass, composition techniques
- Camera settings photography tips and tricks
- Practical knowledge on Photography blogging with WordPress
- Earn Passive Income using Photography
- Lighting for photography
- Photography tips and tricks