Recent News Items

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September 2007

Now 100% 1 to 1

Camera Images have dropped all group courses, they were never as good value as the 1 to 1, and very few people now even enquired about them. We have also dropped for now, the web development courses, as we are far more interested in photography, and want to gain some more time to take more photographs ourselves.

Nikon have announced a half step forward and step sideways with a D3, the first of a family of cameras with a new FX, 36mm sensor (think D3H 5.1 mp when using DX lenses, and loosing the 1.5x multiplier with others, so lenses cost more). They have also announced a D300, both available from November. If you are considering buying one of these then talk to us first, there are advantages for some, but not for many at this time. (DX and FX formats covered now on Q&A page). If not, then keep an eye on the second hand market in December you may get a D2Xs or D200 cheap. We will be training on these from about the beginning of December. We plan to get a D300, but have concerns about the life expectancy of the D3, we may have a D3x that has a large sensor, so that DX users get at least as large a pixel count as with D2x in 3 months, so is the £3,500 price of the D3 a sensible investment we ask ourselves.

August 2007

New page - Making it pay.

The flood and water supply concerns now passed, they had no impact on our ability to operate.

Guarantee reinstated, we have added an extra paragraph that suspends the guarantee in future when things such as floods or tourist actions mess anything up, we just want this to reflect our confidence that training will always be the best, we cannot guarantee transport the weather or other such items. No one has ever claimed on the guarantee. See Guarantee page.

July 2007

Gloucester floods - these have no impact on our ability to run training courses.

We have a page updating on this at Gloucestershire floods - update

We have also temporally suspended the guarantee scheme, no claims have ever been made on this, it will be continued again once the flood nuisance has completely passed. See Guarantee page.

July 2007

We have added a page explaining how to get your work published, this is applicable to both clients and others.

Our Camera Images brand of limited edition images you will now find featured on the GB Pictures website at www.gbpictures,co.uk  and also used throughout their team website at www.gb-pictures.co.uk

We are now also doing all training for the GB Pictures project.

Web development training - we have put a delay on this training, so that now you need to book these courses at least a month before. This allows us to better schedule our time and computers, and make sure everyone gets the quality training they deserve.

May 2007

A number of changes have now occurred

April 2007

Our limited editions are going to be marketed/promoted as a part of the GB Pictures project that involves franchises that have no franchise fees to start or later. We are also going to be handling training to franchisees at no cost to them. Find out more at www.gb-pictures.co.uk

March 2007

Course Codes added to ease booking.

February 2007

Don't miss the new version of the Limited Edition website at www.camera-images.com and see a range of our tutors work.

New Edit and Print service announced to meet the needs so many of you have asked for.

New 3D course, take 3D pictures with a single camera - call for details.

Recent news

NIKON PRICES

4/12 - As some of you may know, there have been rumours of Nikon price reductions on Nikon lenses in the UK, and some other items perhaps, due to many people importing from where items are cheaper. Just changing a dollar sign to a pound sign has been evident, for example Capture NX £119 here $119 in the USA. 

A number of local dealers have been reluctant to continue to stock new kit  - Something is happening now, some dealers, for example A J Purdy, Warehouse Express and Speedgraphic have now far lower prices for many items. In  some cases its now cheaper to buy from these than from the Hong Kong suppliers.  The prices of cameras, flash units and flash kits, as well as lenses appear to have been quite drastically cut. 

We suggest you check this all out out before you make any new purchase. 

 

100% Money Back Guarantee introduced, to make it easier for those who have tried elsewhere and not found it worth while to have the confidence to come and make rapid progress with us.  As we have never had a client who was not delighted with what they achieved, we don't expect to need to make any refunds under this, but hope that it will allow more people some confidence that they can book without risking yet another event where the level and speed of the information is not suitable for them. Click here to read more.

NEW Capture NX course now available with  1 to 1 tuition, no details on this website, but just book it when you want. Sorry not available on 3 to 1.

Completely new, larger website under development, with more photographs, more other information, more suggestions for specialist 1 to 1 courses, but fewer 3 to 1 courses listed. Our target is to have this running live by the middle of December, but if all goes on as at present it may be up earlier. Prices will change (simplifying price structure), but we guarantee that no one who books now will pay more, and you may well save money. (Update - We have delayed the implementation of the new website, we wanted to allow the limited edition website to be introduced and see what work level is created before adding yet more courses).

Policy change -With the increase in the number of lower end Nikon DSLR's we have decided to not stock all variants in future. In many cases people like to use their own cameras, and where they do not we can cover the course on another model. Most models have the same basic controls and layout, but some of the lower cost models just have features, and other parts missing. The D200 is the most common camera we are currently using for training for beginners and intermediates with professionals about equally split between the D200 and D2X. We still have quite a few using the D70 as well.

Extended Photography Skills - 18 months of of extensive training to train you as a professional photographer click here to see more

Page suggestions for 3 day and 5 day personal 1 to 1 courses Click here

Special photographic opportunity to catch spectacular steam railway photos

There is a winter steam festival planned for December 30th and 31st, that may well give the opportunity to get some spectacular photos, the white steam is far more noticeable on cold days, might even have some snow! - 2 RWY* days planned, this is the lower cost bring your own camera group days.

You get to set the course dates

The first person to request a course for any month gets to choose the date-

D80 added

The new D80 appears to be another exciting development, although we haven't got our hands on one, we have a manual and it is similar in many ways to both the D70 and D200.  Like the D200, which as you know is a really spectacular camera, it has many features to explore and become familiar with. If you want to handle a D80 and don't have one yourself then let us know and as soon as we have one, which could be any day now, we can let you know.

Camera Images Club to have local branches across the UK and be franchised

The collaboration between the Camera Images Club and the Aaronic Business Angels Network (ABAN) has opened up many opportunities for photographers to become involved in joint projects. Working with some of the members and ABAN and looking at what members want and how we can provide such a service, we came to the conclusion that the Camera Images Club, needed to have local branches, and lots of them. 

Some while back you may know we opened up the club, so it was for anyone interested in digital photography, irrelative of the type of equipment used.  We looked at various ways to achieve this and while local volunteer groups initially appealed, we realised that the realistic chance of much happening by this route in a short period of time was unlikely and that these type of clubs often develop into local cliques, rather than being open to a wider membership, with all the benefits this can bring. We considered  a number of other options before deciding that a simplified franchise arrangement based on a county structure, giving a great deal of independence to individual county franchises was the best route. It is also cost effective to administer with 90% of all the membership subscriptions being able to be spent within the county franchise, allowing a lot more local events to be provided for members, as well as keeping down subscriptions.

You can find out more, by visiting the clubs website or the ABAN website, plus a small amount more is in the extended 'Escape Committee' section.

Up and running at the new centre

The move has been completed, and we are up and running fully again now, with some training undertaken here. We are absolutely delighted with it.

The larger amount of space and improved photo opportunities particularly has made a considerable difference. Although of late we have had perfect weather for photography, having a large sliding  window to the rear garden from the main room we use for training, and porch at the front large enough to hold more photographers than are ever with us at one time,  means that training on occasions when the weather is less than ideal will be far easier. With much larger rooms and high ceilings, we can create studio situations far easier. For those with an interest in architectural photography, the large double height hall, staircase and gallery, and chandelier with 28 lamps extends the opportunities. It is an unusual property to find even in this town, with its statues, pond with fish and water lilies, shaped shrubs, roses, and period design features.

Those who have attended our very popular one to one, personal tuition at the new centre, have thoroughly enjoyed the VIP experience, and we have found that we have been able to cover even more than before in a day, as we now have so many more situations that offer direct experience to be obtained.

Although less than half a mile from the town centre it is extremely quiet here, amongst tree lined streets and with a high, thick hedge running around our centre. Parking is free and never a problem and access to coach and train stations is far more convenient, we can reach either in about 10 minutes. Those who come by train or coach can be collected and returned.

Getting back to the steam railway and countryside locations so many of you have enjoyed is also achieved quickly as we are going out of town and most of the locations we use are also around 10 minutes away by car.

Disruptions

The move to our new centre is now fully planned, and in stages over a number of days. This will start Thursday 20th July and be completed by Sunday 23rd. In theory we are staging switching telephone lines so the 0845 094 2487 number should work all of the time. Other numbers that you may have had from before will cease to work on Friday, as we cannot relocate them.  The broadband connection should move on Friday, but may take a day or two to get fully working on the network. This does not affect this website which is in a server centre elsewhere, but does mean we may not be able to update it to reflect bookings made for a couple of days. No emails will be lost, and bookings on line will be stacked on the server, so you can continue to make bookings unaffected by this. We do have backup arrangements we can use if a problem is experienced. With a lot of sorting out to do expect to get the answering machine for the first half of the following week, although we will do our best to get back to you within a few hours.

New Location - We will be running at our new centre from the later half of July, this is located in Cheltenham, only a short drive from where we were before, but more convenient for people who want to come by train or coach, as well as being more convenient for those who want to stay in the area before or after visiting us. This also also gives us larger rooms and  once we are fully sorted out a larger studio as well, particularly useful for the extended range of studio and flash related topics. With  easy parking and more space it also means that on some occasions we could run two courses at the same time, utilising different tutors as well as running some of the business courses with 6 people attending and 2 tutors. While this opens up the opportunities in many areas we have had to sacrifice one feature,  the fantastic collection of natural wildlife we have had within feet, just about all of the time. For this reason we have suspended for now the wildlife courses, but will be announcing replacement wildlife courses utilising other facilities next year.

The move has also meant that the calendar has had to be changed quite a bit.

This has also lined up with the introduction of the business courses we have been working on for some time, and with the increase in the number of courses, splitting the courses page from one page to four.

Several other changes have been made to the website, including the removal of the centre wildlife log which is no longer relevant and the short notice specials page that informed you of last minute discount places, special free days and more, this page has been transferred into the Camera Images Club website.  We have a new section on the escape committee, a joint project that I am sure many will find exciting.

We are now starting to look to expand the number of tutors that we have available. We have added a new page to cover this topic.

Previous news items

New Help by the hour - consultancy not a training course. Introduced to meet the requests of members and clients. please se the new page on this for an explanation of what is available.

Plans - We hope to be on the move

We are still currently looking for another property, although our current centre has served us well and has many advantages, we could really do with something larger. The challenge is finding another Cotswold location that we like as much or more. The birds and wildlife we can attract wherever we move in this area, we are not so likely to have such ideal direct access to the steam railway, although there is two access points to us within 100 metres either side of the centre so this will not present a problem. Some properties have views and other attractions. The best time for a move would be July or early August, and we may need to move a course date or two, but we will do this after talking to people who are booked on them. If we can, we want to be fully operational in the new property by September, and have plans to have a wider range of courses then, space permitting. We will announce here when we have firm dates and then move any courses that we need to.  Please continue to book, this is going to have little or no effect on you, other than we are going to have to give you a map to explain how to find us. Telephone numbers may change, but this website will be updated as soon as we know.

New Local seminars, build from 1 to 4 seminars in a day to make your local days training. Conventional larger group presentations, with no hands on experience, prices from £19.95 to £99 for the full day. - a new seminar section has been added to this website. We haven't set any dates yet, and are holding back on this until we know the dates for the move.

Expanded range of courses from September

We are expanding the range of courses from September, adding a number aimed at explaining how to get into photography full time, how to make a living out of having stock photos on picture libraries and how to become involved in training, amongst others. These are popular areas now for one to one bookings so extending them to small group events make sense. Look out for details nearer the time.

NEW  course CLG - Flash and creative lighting, utilising both Nikon systems and others, starting in September.

2007 courses being planned

Brokerage being explored

We are exploring the idea of taking bookings for other photographers who could run  more courses. Watch later in the year for details.