Understanding your Digital EOS with Brian Hall

The courses are held by either Brian Hall, Ian McNeill or Nina Bailey, all of who have worked for Canon for a number of years and have been involved in digital imaging since the early 80s.

Experience Seminars hold approximately 600 training events per year, including Photo Shoot Experience, which involves learning on location in various settings, and practical training courses which involve a maximum of four delegates for tutorial on a more personal basis.

Information about the course
Understanding your Digital EOS is a foundation course which aims to cover all the basics of photography with a digital EOS, and lasts for one day, beginning at 10:00am and finishing at approximately 3:00pm.

Courses cost £125 per person, with a maximum of 12 people in any one seminar, and are located both in-house at the Experience Seminar premises near Huntingdon, as well as on location at various hotels in cities around the UK.

Topics covered include menus, modes, white balance, lenses, aperture and depth-of-field control, shutter speeds, exposure compensation and ISO settings. Ongoing technical support and advice is provided free of charge.

Events and learning process
The course that I attended was held at the Marriott hotel in Manchester and conducted by Brian Hall. The group was comprised of 10 delegates including myself. Most members of the groups were owners of either a 350D or 400D, while one person had a Mark II EOS.

The course was structured around a powerpoint presentation, and the corresponding guide that is handed at the start of the course, which included an Adobe presentation of the seminar on CD. After discussing the basic set up of the EOS system - including menus, settings and displays - Brian went on to discuss the various shooting modes, with examples of which situations they should be used for. He also discussed factors such as digital noise, how to use ISO settings, white balance and exposure compensation to enhance your photography, and explained how to use and understand histograms, f-stops and aperture.

The course is specifically designed around the Canon EOS system and would not be relevant or applicable to any other type of camera. Information provided in the duration of the course was very thorough, and covered all aspects of the EOS system. Any questions asked were answered thoroughly with flip chart diagrams to explain concepts if necessary.

Verdict
Understanding your digital EOS is an ideal overview of the Canon SLR system for both newcomers to photography, and those wishing to explore the capabilities of their equipment in more depth.

Because the course is structured especially for EOS users, all of the information in the course was relevant and useful. The content of the course was both comprehensive and clearly explained, and I felt that I learnt a great deal in the five hours that we were there, including functions on my camera that I never knew existed.

The notes, provided at the beginning of the course included everything covered in the duration of the seminar, and made it easy to look back on the elements that may have been missed during the day. I would definitely recommend it to all EOS users, and in particular, those new to the EOS system.

Additional information
Understanding Your Digital EOS is the foundation course on which all the other Experience Seminars are based. Lunch and refreshments are provided. Other day courses available include Making the most of Photoshop, Better Wildlife Images and Making the Most of Your Digital SLR which is the logic follow on to Understanding Your EOS. For the full list of courses available with Experience Seminars, please visit their website.

All images in this review were taken with the Canon EOS 400D.