PPSOP.com Review – My Electronic Flash – The ‘MYSTERY’ Revealed! Review.

This is another PPSOP (Picture Perfect School of Photography) course I took. Again, another $195 I felt I could have saved.  However, this course did again help me to put the flash on my camera and shoot a little bit more.  There were three main problems with this course that I’ll share.

First, the instructor teaches flash concepts of course, but everything is taught from a Canon point of view.  If you have a Canon camera and flash system you would probably gain more from the class.  Very little if anything was mention about Nikon or other camera or flash models.  I understand it wasn’t a class on how to use your specific flash model, but in my opinion, flash models do play a role in understanding flash photography better.  I’ve only been working with flash photography for a short time, but already, I am seeing that these flash guns are different and need to be operated differently.  I remember having difficulty on the first lesson with my flash unit.  The instructors response was to read the manual and get to know your flash gun better.  I felt the comments were appropriate, but they made me feel like “Don’t take this class until you master your flash gun sir”.  So I was a little put off by that feedback. 

Second, feedback and comments were again scarce.  These photography instructors need to go beyond merely a “Looks great” or “Nice job” comment.  Also, answering a question is not really a critique or comment.  I saw many comments as answers to questions and not a focus on the photograph itself.  Where was all the info about your Aperture, ISO, Shutterspeed, Exposure Value, and Flash settings in the critiques?  The comments were very rushed and thus I thought this degraded the quality of the course considerably.  In fact, on several of my photographs, the comments were merely cut and pasted to all three.  The same comments for each photograph?  Now that’s not cool.

Third, Unlike the “Understanding Exposure” course, I felt in My Electronic Flash – The ‘MYSTERY’ Revealed!, the course had assignments that were very difficult to understand.  There were lots of questions, but not enough clarification as to what was to be gained out of the lesson.  I even got an email once from a woman in the class asking around to other classmates if they could provide a better explanation of the material.  There was too much busy detail and not enough exercises to help people establish the basics in mastering their flash guns.

In conclusion, there is not a lot of Flash material out there so unfortunately, this class will snag a lot of people like myself thinking that something will actually be taught.  There’s not much in this class especially if you are a Nikon user.  If you have a Canon, this class may be slightly helpful in that you will at least better understand the content as related to your Canon Flash.  Overall, I felt just taking Flash photos and uploading them to be looked at ( not critiqued ), was what this class was all about.  Seriously, the Flash course at PPSOP was probably the worst course I have ever taken.  Thumbs down on this one!

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I just finished taking a class called “Understanding Exposure” at the PPSOP or Picture Perfect School of Photography.  This is a review of my experience along with some thoughts about the course I took.  First I took the course with the expectation that it would help motivate me to get out and use my Nikon D70s and D200 more.  The class did this perfectly!  The class instructor, Bryan Peterson, was fabulous at motivating students to get out and shoot!  In fact, I have all of his books and DVD.  You merely have to sit down a few minutes and suddenly you are drawn to getting up and getting your camera to practice some of the points made in the material.

Other than motivation, was there anything great about the Picture Perfect School of Photography course “Understanding Exposure”?  Not really.  I found several problems with the course which have caused me to hesitate in continuing with the school.  Although I may take another course to see if things improve, I probably will not continue indefinitely.  Here are the points that I thought were huge drawbacks in the course.

1.  The material covered in the “Understanding Exposure” course is EXACTLY the same as his book and DVD.  When I say EXACTLY I mean almost word for word.  This was very disappointing because if you have read the books, you are paying $395 to hear the same thing.  I’d recommend just paying $25 or so and saving the $395 on the course.  You could get yourself a new lense for that money and possibly get more out of the course.  Adding more or different content to compliment the book would have been best in my opinion.

2.  Comments and Feedback were scarce.  There is a Q&A section and a Critique section in the course.  The instructor Bryan was never to be found ( except for the introductions ) in the Q&A section.  His assistant was left for that.  Comments were done on time, but they were very limited and almost seemed to “stroke” the student as if to make them feel good and not necessarily to critique.  I felt more “concrete” information such as Aperture, Shutterspeed, White Balance, Composition, Color, Contrast, Time of day, ISO, Special techniques, etc could have been much much better incorporated into the feedback.  Afterall, we were encouraged to have this information uploaded along with our photos, but it was rarely used in the critique.  This again was very disappointing.  I almost felt like I was being enticed to take more courses through these frequent “Wow, great shot” type comments.  Anyway, my point here is that more detailed comments along with more constructive criticism would have been better for me.

Other minor points I felt were a bit disappointing were the fact that the site felt very unfinished.  I took the course when the school opened so it is very understanding that things would be under construction.  However, I do web design and program sites all the time.  The speed of development for this site is quite slow in my opinion.  There is no gallery for students to display photos.  The forum or Q&A section is very primitive compared to schools like Betterphoto and even basic forum scripts in PHP,ASP or ASPX.  Hopefully this will change which I’m sure it will.  It’s just too awkward as is.  Other areas of the site are very brief and it’s very difficult to get any sort of detailed information.  There is video streaming in the “Understanding Exposure” course, but it is ALL taken from the DVD so it’s nothing new.  Get the DVD and again save your hard earned money.

Other than motivation and inspiration from other students, it’s very hard to find anything super about this course.  I took it because it was highly recommended to me by students familiar with Betterphoto classes.  After reading all the books and watching “The Picture Perfect” DVD I was convinced the “Understanding Exposure” course was for me.  Little did I know that there was nothing new in the class.  In fact, I got more from the book and DVD combo than the entire course put together.  I could have saved myself $395!!  However, to be fair, the course did get me out of the house and shooting my camera much more.  This was my original point in taking the course, so in that respect the “Understanding Exposure” course was successful.  Thus I give it a thumbs up. 

Thus I can only recommend the PPSOP ( Picture Perfect School of Photography ) to those who need help in motivation and/or as a source of inspiration to get out and shoot.  If you’ve read the material you really don’t need to take this class.  In fact if you do need motivation, the books and DVD will do just fine as well.  There’s nothing new or different.  So save that $395 and get yourself a new lense or a whole library of photography books!  It’s hard earned money better spent!

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