Online Photography Course
Better Exposure: How to Meter Light
Have a pro at your side - online, all the time
 Learn everything there is to know about creating great exposures - whether you're photographing sunsets, pictures of people, beautiful landscapes, or any other subject. In this exciting 4-week course, professional photographer Sean Arbabi shares his expertise on how your camera meters a scene, fully understanding how shutter speeds and apertures work separately and in combination, and the art of exposure creating mood and enhancing lighting. Better Exposure will vastly improve your photography and your confidence when it comes to exposure. This fun class will help you master the concepts of exposure and skills that every pro uses on a daily basis, so you too can make the best, more creative decisions as you frame each scene.
Key Features
- Basics on Exposure
- Understanding How Your Camera Meter Works
- The Spectrum of Exposures
- Exposures through Color, Value, and Light
- For Novices and Serious Hobbyists (skill levels 1 and 2).
- Learn the basics of exposure..
- Understand how your camera meter works.
- Cover the full spectrum of exposures from slow to fast.
- Master metering in a variety of conditions.
What You Get
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Benefits:
You get direct feedback on your photos from world-acclaimed, professional photographers. You can learn photography in this way from anywhere in the world.
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- Learn at your pace, with structure.
- Be guided by a real pro instructor.
- Get your photos critiqued every week.
- Join students from around the world.
- Go far beyond any book or DVD.
- Make great pictures, again and again!
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Instructor
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Sean ArbabiSean Arbabi is a commercial photographer specializing in adventure, lifestyle, nature, & travel - for ad, corporate, & editorial clients. He has had freelance & contracted assignments with over 300 publications and 150 companies worldwide. His recent project, a 225-page book entitled The BetterPhoto Guide to Exposure, published by Amphoto/ Random House, hits shelves January 2009, in the top 50 photo books for months. Credits include American Express, Backpacker, California Division of Tourism, The Daily Telegraph, Endless Vacation, Fuji Film USA, GEO Germany, Inside Sport-Australia, JC Penny, Microsoft, National Geographic Adventure & Traveler, The New York Times, Newsweek, Nikon Inc., The North Face, Outside, Random House, REI, Runner's World, Sports Illustrated, Timex, VisitFlorida.com, Via magazine, & Woodbridge wines. Sean has shot over 200 assignments for Sunset, & authored numerous feature articles displaying his photography. A native Californian, his family moved to Iran in 1972, & after living in Tehran for four years, returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in '76 where Sean makes his home today. In '91, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Commercial photography from Brooks Institute of Photography, & began his business Arbabi Imagery thereafter combining outdoor, on-location, & studio photography. Today, he shoots in 120mm medium format & 35mm, film & digital, & brings a background of on-location, studio, outdoor, & lighting skills & experience to every job. His assignment travels incorporate much of the US, with international locations including Canada, Mexico, the UK, Southeast Asia, & South America. His stock image files, currently 400,000 strong, have been published in ads, books, brochures, mags, newspapers, trade shows, & websites worldwide. Over the years, he's backpacked over mountain ranges, helicoptered above jungles, ridden horseback across plains, rafted down rivers, biked along forest trails, sailed on oceans, & hung over cliffs, all to capture images he & his clients were in search of. Photography is his passion. Sean is a down-to-earth person, easy-going & fun to work with. He takes pride in being a pro photographer & businessperson, & feels lucky to succeed in a career providing so much happiness. In recent years, Arbabi's travel jobs lead him around the US, the Caribbean, Canada & Mexico. Recently, he landed two travel guidebook covers, five magazine covers, a catalog cover, wrote & shot seven feature articles, all the while creating a tv show on photography entitled Photoguru. Sean resides in Danville, CA with his wife & two cutie-patutie daughters.
Course Outline
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Lesson 1: Basics on Exposure
Understanding exposure from the ground level...
Introduction: The definition of exposure and how it works. How shutter speeds and f-stops (or aperture) work independently, and in combination. Experimenting with exposures to create a properly metered scene.
Sidebar #1: Depth-of-Field.
Sidebar #2: Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority
Assignment: Create one image using a fast shutter speed, and one using a slow shutter speed. Create one image using minimum depth-of-field and one with maximum depth-of-field.
Lesson 2: Understanding How Your Camera Meter Works
And the difference between metering modes...
Learning about how camera meters read scenes, how the meter is fooled under a variety of situations, and why using manual settings can fix the problem. Understanding the range of light at which your film or digital cameras can capture or document light and shadow in a scene (from highlight to 18% grey to shadow). Sidebar #1: Spot Metering, Center-weighted, Matrix-metering, incident metering.
Sidebar #2: How film or iso settings change exposure and color in a scene.
Assignment: Capture one image of the same scene in shutter-priority, one in aperture priority, and one in manual mode and record all three exposures. Shoot three different subjects/situations exposing one frame on an automatic setting and one frame on a manual setting for each scene.
Lesson 3: The Spectrum of Exposures
Using the art of exposure to your advantage...
Discovering the wonders of “equivalent exposures” allowing you the range of creativity with a variety of correct exposures in one scene. Using filters (whether on-camera or through photoshop) to correct or adjust exposures.
Sidebar: The range of light from highlight to shadow to 18% grey.
Assignment: Find and photograph a scene with three different equivalent exposures. Capture one landscape scene with no filter and the same scene with (i.e., graduated neutral density, polarizer, split neutral density, etc.).
Lesson 4: Exposures through Color, Value, and Light
Mastering your newfound knowledge and judging it under adverse conditions...
Studying the aspects of how certain exposures can intensify or focus the viewer’s eye to the light in a scene. Understanding how light can impact a photo and exposure and how times of day or weather conditions affect exposures. Working in challenging conditions with light or contrast. "Fixing" exposures using fill flash, reflectors, diffusion, and/or other light sources. Shifting the camera’s point-of-view to eliminate a distracting or bright "hot" spots giving the perception of a better exposure.
Sidebar #1: Sidelight vs. backlight vs. frontlight.
Sidebar #1: Flash vs. reflectors vs. no additional light or fill source.
Assignment: Create one image of the same scene using fill-flash and/or other lights, and then using no additional light source. Capture one correctly exposed scene under challenging lighting conditions.
© Sean Arbabi | 
© Sean Arbabi |
Requirements
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- Digital or film camera with a remote release or self-timer.
- Ability to set your camera in manual mode (setting your own aperture and shutter speed for a scene).
- A sturdy tripod.
- Some filters (whether for your camera or through Photoshop).
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FAQ
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Is this course intended for beginning, intermediate or advanced photographers? This class is intended for everyone from upper beginner to "serious hobbyist" or advanced amateur. Exposure is one of the most important aspects of any photo to great to learn about or review at any skill level. Learning to recognize and control it is a very important step forward in advancing your photographic skills. Although it is not necessary to have finely tuned technical skills to enroll in this course, having spent a little time behind the camera is beneficial, but again not required. Do I need to have a digital camera, or can I use my film camera for the assignments? You do not need a digital camera. This class is for digital or film SLR camera users. I still use film cameras quite a bit on assignment these days. With film cameras, though, you will need to digitize (scan) your images in order to upload them to BetterPhoto.com for critique. You may even be able to find a lab nearby that can provide you with scans when you process your film. Do I have to have a camera with manual settings? Yes, not only to understand exposure to its fullest, but complete the weekly assignments. Most SLR cameras do have manual settings, and these days even many point-and-shoot digital cameras. Does my camera need to be expensive - a professional model? No, as long as your camera allows you to control aperture and shutter speed and use a variety of lenses - those are important things. Without these kinds of creative options, you will likely find your camera insufficient, and you won’t get the maximum out of this course. I live in an area that is always cloudy. Will I be able to complete the assignments? Sure. My assignments are designed to get you out photographing under many weather conditions, any season, and during all type of lighting situations. That is the great thing about understanding exposure. You will be able to capture images under all of these scenarios. I shoot indoors as well as outside. Will this class help me? Yes, definitely. The emphasis of this course is focused on exposure, but the knowledge will give you a better understanding of the difficulty of indoor and/or artificial light situations, as well as potential ways for producing better images under these conditions. Are you going to teach things you can do in Photoshop? Not really. You can adjust some exposures through Photoshop, but our goal is to have you understand exposure and get it right in-camera, during the moment, as opposed to correcting your images later in Photoshop or in another digital image-editing software program.
© Sean Arbabi | 
© Sean Arbabi |
Do I have to be online at any specific time?
No, you do not need to be online at any specific time. The lessons are sent to your email and you are also provided the Campus Square - where you interact with your classmates and instructor. This is also where you upload your photos to be critiqued by your instructor. The instructors are very punctual and respond quickly.
Will I have access to the instructor to ask questions during the photo course?
Absolutely! Students can ask questions in the special Q&A forum set up in the course's Campus Square, or can ask the instructor via email.
Do you offer a money back guarantee?
Yes. We are confident that you will fully enjoy our courses. All the same, for our 8-week classes, we offer a 100% money-back guarantee before the Wednesday that Lesson #3 is sent out. If for any reason, you are not satisfied and let us know that you would like to withdraw before the Wednesday that Lesson #3 is sent, you will be promptly refunded.
For our 4-week courses, we offer a 100% money back guarantee before the Wednesday that Lesson #2 is sent out from BetterPhoto. If for any reason you are not satisfied and you let the ordering department know that you would like to withdraw before the Wednesday that Lesson #2 is sent, you will be refunded within 7 days. After the second lesson has been sent out, no refunds will be given.
Still have questions about this course?
Ask instructor Sean Arbabi.
Only $198.00 USD
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