Run advert to teach people how to use their cameras?

I'm thinking about this but not exactly sure how to go about it. Think there's a market for teaching people how to use their new DSLR they get during the holidays?

Have a pretty good idea of what tools and resources to provide plus basic hands-on shooting experience. Couple hour session should be plenty. Charge about $50 or so per head. Maybe 2-3 people per session.

What do you think? Where to advertise? Anyone doing this with any level of success?

Just an idea. Didn't say it was a GOOD one, but an idea nonetheless.

dave

Dave, I don't think I have the patience to do that.
Just think about getting several people in a room that have never held a digital camera, have no idea how to take a good picture with proper exposure. And two of them just bought Nikons!

Do you ave a place for training or would you have to find a meeting room at the local Holiday Inn?

Reason I ask...last year a guy got up a meeting of photographers that lived within about 20 miles from my house. He rented the meeting room/banquet room at a local housing subdivision for a couple of hours. About ten people showed up. Even though these folks have been a part of a photo forum, some of them were really rank beginners. It is hard to pass on very much information in a couple of hours. Throw in a couple of breaks about every 45 minutes (for smokers, brain freeze, etc) and the time left for training will shrink quickly.

Seems like you could post an ad at your local photography shop(s) if available. Facebook can spread the word pretty quickly from friend to friend.

Got an agenda?

Biggest hurdle would be if you actually know enough to answer all the questions, do you have a reputation in the industry, most camera stores offer a beginner class when they purchase the DSLR. My first instinct would be to check your history and see if you are qualified to teach.
Also if they have a DSLR they probably know the basics of a camera and would want to learn more about lighting and so on.

Workshops are a way a lot of high visibility pros make a living. You need a working knowledge of the fundamentals of exposure and then a hands on knowledge of the consumer level bodies that people might be bringing in.

Many community colleges offer non credit community education day classes. You could contact those places and work to see if they would like to see if a photography workshop course would be feasible.

I see a lot of local photographers do this via meetup. They usually only charge $10-$15/head for a short class, like exposure, or flash, etc.

or they do one with models and charge more. the main issue you have will be space. meeting at a park is an option, if the weather is nice.

Thanks for all the responses so far. And I'm talking VERY basic stuff here. Most people I would envision will be as someone mentioned, complete novices and know very little about their camera.

My plan would be to locate the people and 'advance' the session with information useful to them Prior to the hands-on session so our time together would be productive in terms of practical experience. I'm thinking 2-3 people, small group setting would be best.

As far as teaching goes, I'm not a teacher, but my day gig entails a lot of end-to-end process mapping, re-engineering and the like so putting together a basic, understandable outline and agenda that results in learning would be an easy task for me.

Current strategy is what you might call DSLR 101 or Basic Training. Simple stuff like exposure triangle; why we don't use AUTO mode; WB; what a histogram looks like; lots of hands-on shooting examples of what works and what doesn't work and why. It would be like an accelerated learning opportunity compared to learning, or NOT learning on their own.

Since I'm not shooting HS sports anymore, what the heck am I going to do all winter anyway? Might as well help some people get good results from a new DSLR instead of seeing them holding the camera at arms length like a P&S in auto mode and wondering why the output is bad!

More ideas welcome.

dave

I watched a lady yesterday buy a Nikon D3100 kit at Sam's Club. After reading your first post I thought she would have been the ideal candidate for one of your sessions. "Which way is up?"

With more people buying online or in the big box stores, you might be able to get some folks that have little to no experience other than the green box mode, if that.

You know as well as I do people struggle when shooting sports indoors. They come to me all the time. Or the lady last week at a night football game that came over and said "I don't know what I did, but I changed something and now the camera won't take a picture." I looked at it (Nikon) and told her I couldn't help because I don't know anything about that brand. Another candidate for ya.

I tried to offer a starter seminar for new dslr users via craigslist and I kept getting flagged. I think there is a real market though. Some poor schmuck (or his wife) spends $500+ for a camera that they dont understand. $50 for an hours lesson where you teach them the histogram, selecting focus points, using exposure comp and the difference between AV and TV mode would be money well spent.

MT Stringer wrote in post #13402781
You know as well as I do people struggle when shooting sports indoors. They come to me all the time. Or the lady last week at a night football game that came over and said "I don't know what I did, but I changed something and now the camera won't take a picture." I looked at it (Nikon) and told her I couldn't help because I don't know anything about that brand. Another candidate for ya.

LOL! We can't know EVERY camera! My favorite so far at a night football game was, 'why is the field blue in my pictures?' Can't remember which WB the guy chose, but had him change to fluorescent and the field became green again. He thought the LCD screen had changed or something!

dave

gonzogolf wrote in post #13402801
I tried to offer a starter seminar for new dslr users via craigslist and I kept getting flagged. I think there is a real market though. Some poor schmuck (or his wife) spends $500+ for a camera that they dont understand. $50 for an hours lesson where you teach them the histogram, selecting focus points, using exposure comp and the difference between AV and TV mode would be money well spent.

All good ideas. Thanks. I've 'borrowed' some DSLR 101 verbiage that looks good as well. It's a great example of 'don't believe everything you read and hear!'

I considered Craig's List but that in itself seems kind of dicey from the word go. Sure, show up with my new DSLR and get robbed by some guy!

dave

This woman goes to my church and offers workshops. Kind of like what you were thinking:
http://www.nancymerkli​ng.com/index2.php

snyderman wrote in post #13403211
All good ideas. Thanks. I've 'borrowed' some DSLR 101 verbiage that looks good as well. It's a great example of 'don't believe everything you read and hear!'

I considered Craig's List but that in itself seems kind of dicey from the word go. Sure, show up with my new DSLR and get robbed by some guy!

dave

Why would you take your dslr to to teach them? Use their DSLR. Just make sure to identify the model in advance so you can familiarize yourself on the controls. I had a friend hand me a t3i a while back and it took me some time to remember the controls, things have changed quite a bit since my xti.

Before you go too far down the road, I'd check local camera shops to see what they have. You could then decide if you could be successful competing on price, length and topics.

Here is what I found in STL:

http://www.schillers.c​om/cameraclasses.html

http://www.cccamera.co​m/files/nov_dec2011.pd​f

snyderman wrote in post #13403200
LOL! We can't know EVERY camera! My favorite so far at a night football game was, 'why is the field blue in my pictures?' Can't remember which WB the guy chose, but had him change to fluorescent and the field became green again. He thought the LCD screen had changed or something!

dave

Likely Tungsten. When I was just starting out and learning the camera, I had taken some indoor jpeg photos in tungsten light and set the WB accordingly. The next time I grabbed my camera was to take a shot of a beautiful morning snow looking across a lake. The WB was still set to tungsten. The picture came out very blue; but very Christmas Cardy. I ran across that file the other day when I was looking for an entry to a Photo contest involving that lake area. I titled the shot "Twilight Snow" and entered it. I'll let you know how I do.

Our local "leisure courses" which occur either during the evening or on weekends offer all sorts of DSLR beginners courses to some more advanced courses. They usually have about 20 hours of instruction for groups of 10+ stretched over a couple of weekends or a bunch of evenings and they run about $75 for the course.

I would check around your area to see if something like this is offered. I am sure if you look, there are all sorts of courses available on this subject. Don't know if you would get many takers at the $/hour you are looking at.