School of Photography Newsletters

Do you want to start shooting for our next competition “Movement”? Then have a look at our latest Infocus Phototips installment. Shoot blur, freeze movement, it is all here at http://www.schoolofphotography.com/if/infocus35.html

UPDATE: 7th October 2006: This position has now been filled.

Applications are invited for the following position:

Photography Tutor: Part-time (ref:pt806)

Online Photography Courses

• Applications are invited to undertake tutoring via email students following the various photography courses at the School of Photography.com website.
• Applicants are required to hold suitable life experience in photography and/or a relevant photographic qualification.
• Applicants should preferably have some experience of teaching.
• You must have a valid email address and access to your own computer.
• Suitable applicants will be shortlisted and required to write a critique of a standard project.

Renumeration:

• The successful applicant will be employed on a self-employed tax basis and will be required to submit a monthly invoice.
• Renumeration is paid at a set rate per project completed.
• Payment is made once a month against a submitted invoice showing completed projects.
• Payments within the Republic of Ireland are by Euro-Cheque.
• Payments outside of the Republic of Ireland are made via PayPal.

Closing Date: Fri, Sep 15th, 2006, 17:00 :

Applications with an up-to-date Curriculum Vitae are to be mailed to

HR Dept, School of Photography.com, PO BOX 314, Tralee, Co. Kerry, Ireland.

with the subject Tutor Position Application ref:pt806.

School of Photography.com is an equal opportunity employer

Thank you

The amount of images submitted for projects are quite substantial and sometimes a few will stand out from the crowd. These are the types of images that make it into our Student Gallery. Here are two photos that stood out from the crowd and have been chosen for the Student Gallery.

Pencils by Jacqueline Georgiou

Jacqueline is currently doing our Digital Photography Course and had previously completed our Basic Photography Course. This image was chosen from her first Digital Photography Project. There is no need for explanation as to what caught the eye in this image. The strong colours and simple shapes are an immediate eye catcher.

City Reflections by Merran Jones

It can be quite difficult to isolate a subject in a city environ. However Merran has come up with a nice clean photo of this building and the reflection. No digital enhancements were carried out in this image and the distortions were created by the glass. Merran is a Basic Photography student and she entered this photo as part of her second project.

You can view these images here:
http://www.schoolofphotography.com/gallery/gallery11.html

 

When you are shopping for a digital camera what is the most important feature you look for? Is it how many exposure functions the camera has? The type of memory card it uses? Is it compact or are you looking for a SLR camera? Whatever the answer to these three questions, the first question you may ask or more notably the first detail you will be told, either through advertising or the salesperson, is how many megapixels the camera is capable of producing. However is this the most important consideration for most amateur photographers?

Just a few years ago this was a very important consideration as digital cameras generally had a very low resolution. Every extra pixel available counted toward the ability to produce reasonably sized images and fine detail rendition. Now even the most basic of compact cameras that have recently hit the camera market has at least 4 megapixels of optical resolution. This is more than enough to produce a decent quality image of up to A4 (11″x8″ approx.) in size.

There are many compact digital cameras now using image sensors that can produce 5, 6 and 7 megapixel images. But is this really necessary, particularly for the occasional snapper who may only blow the dust off their camera at certain times of year? Not really, but there is an advantage to all these pixels for certain uses.

Even though cameras now seem to have more pixels than is needed, there still is the factor of choice in the size a person chooses to enlarge an image or how finely recorded their subject must be. For the serious enthusiast and for professional purposes, the more megapixels the better as this makes the image more versatile, though not necessarily of any better image quality.

So one fact has now changed regarding the image quality of a digital camera. No longer is the pixel resolution the main factor that it was when choosing a digital camera, as they nearly all have adequate resolution to produce a good quality image for most purposes.

We as consumers can now start looking at the other features in a digital camera and give them more consideration when buying. Most digital cameras are now packed with real photographic features that seemed to have been considered added bonuses rather than important features in the camera. Now that megapixels is no longer of too much significance, we can look past the usual advertising indicators and see what these cameras are really made of.