Fly by night company?

[robpendragon]

Hey guys, I've noticed these ads in my photography magazines for NYIP (New York Institute of Photography)http://www.nyip.com/ it seems to be a DVD/CD pack of learning material & submission requirements (for grading) Has anyone ever done this or looked into it? I will probably send for the catalog to check prices. The one thing that I noticed is it says "Adobe Elements not sufficient for course" which I can't understand why. If anyone took these courses let me know please via reply or pm.
Thanks:D

[LeeOtsubo]

NYIP is one of the oldest photography schools in the US. They've been around since dirt was invented. I've never taken their classes but friends who have tell me it's no different than any school, you will get out of it what you put into it. If you have the determination and discipline, you can learn a lot. I'm also told much of their material seems dated because it was developed in the film era but basics are basics. It's not particularly cheap but it's not Brooks Institute either.

[tbrannon]

Glad you asked this Rob. I just requested their catalog the other day.
I'm also very intrested in this. I'll keep watching the thread.

[BillBarber]

If you want to find out more about it, go to the NYIP Students Roundtable Forum http://groups.msn.com/NYIPRoundtablePart2/_whatsnew.msnw
Most everyone there is either a graduate,a student, or someone wanting to find out more. This site is also very helpful when you are taking the course if for no other reason than inspiration.

Any course of study is only as good as you make it. You get out of a course in proportion to what you put into it. You could slack off through the course, or you can really work at it. It's up to you. The more you work at it the more knowledge you gain, and knowledge is something nobody can ever take from you.

I don't know this for a fact, but have been told that when you sign-up, do it by phone and you can often get a better price.

[AngelicKim]

I have requested info before and it looks good. They do now have a Digital course. I just have never registered because I haven't had the funds to persue it yet. Everytime I just about do something comes up and there goes the money.

[Tom K]

Hi Rob;

Don't know for sure what level of class you are looking for, but if
your looking for inexpensive(free) HP has some pretty good digital classes
that you may want to look at.
I hope this is a good link....... Tom

http://h30187.www3.hp.com/

[GaryK]

Hi Rob

I have requested their stuff before as well. I'm in perpetual brokedom :D so I have the same end result as Kim.
Don't sign up right away.. for about 6 months after my initial request, I kept getting discount/reduced rate offers.

I was talking with someone here about a year or so ago who had taken it and they really liked it. Sorry I can't recall who it was.:(

[AngelicKim]

I still get the discounted offers but still, broke is broke. They also give you a discount of I think it is $100 or $150 if you pay in full when enrolling instead on monthly payments.

[LeeOtsubo]

...broke is broke...

IIRC, when I was a poor grad student, we classified ourselves as Broke, Broker or Brokest when deciding who paid for beers. :D

Are the NYIP courses still in the $5K-$8K range? That's what I seem to recall. I'm trying to talk DW into letting me take a 7 month course for $20K but that seems to be a non-starter at the moment. :D

[BrendaC]

I'm pretty sure the NYIP course is less than $1,000. Brenda

[genevh]

I am currently enrolled in the NYIP Professional Photographer's Course and am very satisfied with it to this point. I am learning a lot, but as others have said, you get out of it what you put into it. I ended up paying for the entire course up front to take advantage of the pricing discount, which if I remember correctly was about $150 off the advertised price of the course. My final price was about $730 give or take. Sorry, I don't remember the exact figure and I'm not home at the moment to dig it out. If it was $5K to $8K, that would have been a non-starter for me right off. :eek:

I am currently working on the 3rd Unit of 6, having submitted my first two photo projects and received the feedback on them. I will admit that the first time I listened to the critique of my first set of photos, it was painful. My assigned instructor definitely didn't blow any smoke in my direction to make me feel good. After listening the 2nd time, I understood what was being said and the 2nd submission went much better.

Anyway....I got all the material as advertised in the brochure. They missed a piece, but after emailing them I got it in short order. It arrived as advertised in very good condition.

They do a good job of covering the basics and working your way through to more advanced concepts in a way that is easy to comprehend. The audio tapes are good, but the presenters do tend to be a bit "folksy" as others have described, but they make their point. The videos (I got mine on disk) that supplement the books also go a long way toward reinforcing the lesson material. I am learning enough to understand the basics and then some, and supplement what they are teaching with other sources that go into a bit more depth as I move along. There is enough in the course to give you a good foundation and then some, and to really point you in the right directions when you are ready to dig deeper.

The course is essentially based on film photography, but the basics are the same. Aperture, ISO, and shutter speed works the same in digital as it does in film. Digital just gives you a lot more options and more control over the output. They did include an "Introduction to Digital Photography" type extra in my course which has been helpful in what I've gone over so far. It covers probably about 25% to 30% or so of their Digital Photography Course which I think is geared more to learning how to use a digital camera and learning to navigate the digital world, along with photography basics.

Would I recommend the course or sign up for it again? In my case, yes. I prefer the structure of it rather than haphazardly reading whatever I come across as I find it. Probably would have ended up spending that much money on the books anyway. And with the way my work schedule is, attending a local community college or the like wouldn't work out too well.

My photography experience prior to starting the course was basically point and shoot, pray and spray, with a digital camera. I am now using a Nikon D70s, shoot almost entirely in manual mode, and my results are getting better and better. I still pray a lot, but am spraying a lot less! :)

FYI: the course on Photoshop is for the full version of Photoshop, not PSE.

And NO, I am not a paid sponsor for NYIP nor do I get anything if you do enroll! ;)

Hope this helps.

[genevh]

Bill:

Thanks for the link to the NYIP Roundtable. I wasn't aware of that! :D

[LeeOtsubo]

Hi Gene,
Thanks for an excellent review of the current status of NYIP courses. I must have been thinking of another school like RMSP when I recalled the $5-$8K figure.

[Jules]

Or a click.