In preparing this online photograph course I wasted over $500 on photography books I ‘thought’ would serve as reference materials.  I do feel the money was wasted because the books were mostly written by self-proclaimed photography experts who happen to have taken a few good pictures.

Despite what the self-proclaimed experts might try to tell you, photography is 90% luck and 10% technique. The techniques come from knowing how to operate the camera. The luck simply involves being in the right place at the right time. I completely discount the techniques some photographers use in editing their pictures. You can always tell when a picture has been edited because it looks “too good to be true.”

Ninety percent of good pictures involves being in the right place at the right time. You won’t be able to capture the moon rising next to a lighthouse if you’re taking pictures at noon time. You won’t be able to snap a killer picture of the Grand Canyon if you’re in Florida. You won’t be able to capture a shimmering image of a snow-capped mountain if it’s foggy or cloudy. Above all, photography takes patience. The Grand Canyon might be hazy for two months. If you want an excellent picture, you might have to wait longer than two months.

If you have a ‘point and shoot’ camera, don’t waste your time taking this course.  Buy a good camera before proceeding any further. Point-and-shoot cameras have very limited functions. You MUST be able to set your camera’s aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. Without being able to adjust the individual settings, you’ll be limited solely to the camera’s abilities, which are very limited.

So, you want to take better pictures? Learn the basics! The basics of photography are aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. We’ve devoted a separate lesson to each. Over the past 20 years there has been a major swing from manual to fully automated cameras. Everyone thinks they can take great pictures because they invested in an expensive digital camera.  Are you pictures amazing? Or are they simply mediocre? Do you even understand what all of those buttons and dials on your camera do?

As our first lesson in photography, we’d like to take out your camera’s owner’s manual and learn it from front to back. The manual will tell you how to set the aperture. It will tell you how to change the ISO settings. Before you can learn anything about photography, you must learn how your camera works.

Receive a free Certificate of Completion for this photography course. Pass a 40-question test on this course with a score of 70 or higher and receive a certificate of completion. Visit our Basics of Digital Photography Certificate of Completion Program page for more information.