Digital Photography Distance Learning CourseDP202

Course Info

Distance Learning Support

At Start Learning we pride ourselves on our friendly and supportive tutors. Your tutor support will start as soon as you receive your course and will be valid for 12 months. All our tutors are highly qualified with extensive experience in supporting distance learning students. You contact your tutor via email and they are responsible for marking assignments answering your questions and guiding you through the course.

Entry Requirements

No prior knowledge is needed although a reasonable level of literacy is preferred.
At Start Learning we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to expand their knowledge and study further, so we try to keep our entry requirements to a minimum. 

Recommended Hours of Study

We recommended you spend approximately 110 hours of your time studying for the Digital Photography course. The pace of study is completely up to you. To give an example, if you dedicate 2 hours a week to the course it would take you a year to complete but if you could spare 4 hours a week you could complete it in six months.

Course Contents

There are 12 assignments in the course - a combination of written and practical
Also included, there are 20 or so self-assignments that allows the student to build their knowledge on the main areas of photography in a fun and challenging way.
There is no word count for these assignments. However, you must prove to your tutor that you have fully understood the questions asked.

Unit 1- Key topics
History of Photography
Equipment and accessories
Light
Exposure
The Photographic process

Unit 2- Extending Skills and Knowledge
Composition, viewpoint and framing
Digital cameras
Data storage and transfer
Printing
Scanning
Digital image editing and Photoshop

Unit 3- Photography in practice
Specialist area - Portraiture
Specialist area – Landscape
Other specialist areas
Extending the single image
Section summary

Unit 4- Advanced technique
Further Photoshop
Digital Restoration
Careers and opportunities
Final Project Submission assignment

Easy Payment Plan

Full Price is £299

6 Monthly Installments of £50.00

The first installment is paid at time of enrolment with a fee for postage and packaging.

For postage costs click here: Postage & Packaging

Call us on 0800 074 1222 if you would like to set up a payment plan.

Qualification

Qualifications

Upon successful completion of this course, you will gain a Level 3 NCFE Award certificate

Awarding Body Information

NCFE is recognised as an awarding body by the qualification regulators ('regulators') for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The regulators are the Office of the Qualifications and Examinations Regulator (Ofqual) in England, the Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills (DCELLS) in Wales and the Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) in Northern Ireland  

Examination Centre

There is no exam as such, although you will be required to complete a series of tutor-marked assignments. There is no word count for these assignments although you do have to prove to your tutor that you have fully understood the questions asked.

Language of Course

English

FAQ's

Q: Will I need a digital camera on the course?

A: Although a digital SLR is best for this course, students can use a good, high-end compact digital camera if necessary. Budget compacts of the sub-£100, auto-everything, point-and-shoot variety are not recommended, whereas investing in a compact digital camera from a reputable manufacturer which has the facility to over-ride auto exposure is most preferable.
Ideally, your camera should have an Auto Exposure mode BUT ALSO a Manual Override exposure mode so that you can make exposures based on your choices - not just those that an auto-only camera would dictate to you. Aperture Priority mode and Manual are the most useful. As so many students of photography have found, a camera which does all the thinking for you (ie Auto only) inhibits your ability to learn the fundamental (& surprisingly simple) principles behind exposure and the creative possibilities which come from this.
Digital compacts will never be quite as suited to this course as a digital SLR, but a good one will take you a long way. For this course, you won't need a massive telephoto or zoom lens - just a good, sharp lens which is likely to cover wide angle > standard > short telephoto. This zoom lens usually comes as standard with most good compact cameras.

AND

Additionally, if you are upgrading your  compact or investing in a digital compact for the first time (as a step perhaps into more serious photography), a few things to consider:
1) Trust the big names of photography rather than the newcomers, so manufacturers like Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Fuji often come out on top in reader reviews. Online forums and reviews are a good place to start finding out information, but see (4) below. Never buy a compact camera without trying it out first.
2) Shooting mode options (including Manual) are a must (see above).
3) There is an over-emphasis on megapixel resolution figures which some of the manufacturers put out. There's no point in having a huge capture resolution if the camera lens is made of plastic (yep, it does happen). A good quality lens is far more important than pixel count for a compact camera.
4) Handle your camera before you buy it. Only this way will you be able to check for Shutter Lag (delay between pressing the shutter and the camera actually making the exposure) which can be a big problem with compact cameras, though is improving all the time. You also need to get a feel of its menu system, scroll wheels etc and how easy these features are to use or how visible their displays are.
5) Beware of bloated resolution boasts. Real or Optical Resolution is the actual measure, not Interpolated Resolution which simply means that more and more pixels are added to the image via a kind of digital guesswork based on the next pixel to it (" Interpolation" is the technical term for it) which artificially inflates the pixel count, but decrease the actual quality of the image by introducing "false" pixels.

Q: Is there any other reading?
A: No, everything you need to complete the course is included. However, any extra reading you do will always be beneficial for your studies. You will need access to a camera.