0303 - Photographing Nature with Your Digital Camera

Course Description

Course Details Nature photography can be a fun, relaxing, and exciting hobby! In this course, you'll learn about the many aspects of outdoor photography as well as how to master your digital camera's controls and features. With the knowledge you gain in this course, you'll be taking exceptional nature photos in no time. We'll explore composition and lighting issues, and you'll find out how to take beautiful photos of landscapes, flowers, trees, and water. Along the way, we'll delve into your camera's shutter speed and aperture controls so that you'll be able to capture the photos you really want. Then we'll shift gears a bit and consider telephoto work in nature photography. Some natural subjects are always too far away or too dangerous to photograph up close, so we'll see how telephoto lenses and composition techniques can help. We'll also focus on photographing animals—wild and domesticated, as well as large and small. You'll find plenty of tips to help you get great zoo shots and take excellent photos of pets. If you're a bird lover, you're in for a treat because you'll get an entire lesson about photographing birds. In addition, we'll talk about macro photos, which are extreme close-ups of small items in nature. You'll find macro photography opens up a whole new world for you! And then we'll discuss using your computer to process your photos and digitally correct the most common problems. We'll wrap up by exploring abstract nature photography. You'll see how your photos can become works of art rather than just snapshots of nature. By the end of this course, you'll have become the nature photographer you always wanted to be! How It Works This course is fully online, you require internet access and an email account. The course duration is 6 weeks, followed by a 2-week period to complete the final exam (online, open book). Lessons are released on Wednesdays and Fridays of each week, for a total of 12. You are not required to be online at any specific time. In addition to the specific lesson content, there is a discussion board with each lesson and often there is an optional assignment to apply the learning. Following each lesson, there is a short multiple choice quiz. Your score on these quizzes does not count towards the final mark but completing these helps solidify your learning as well as prepare you for the final exam. The final exam is an open-book, multiple choice exam and you need to achieve a minimum of 65% on the final exam to pass the course. There is only one opportunity to pass the exam. A certificate of completion from Ed2Go is available for printing immediately upon successful completion of the course and a certificate from the University of Waterloo will be emailed typically 1-2 weeks later. Many of the Ed2Go courses are eligible towards the various online certificates offered by WatSPEED. Requirements