Photography course

I just started a photography course this week, here in Gisborne with Peter Ryan. It is presented over 5 weeks, in the afternoon. The first 3 weeks are theory, then we go out and practise.
It was an interesting start to the course. I expected something more basic, since a few of the participants were quite unfamiliar with their cameras and digital photography. Still, one has to start somewhere. The first session was about shutter speed and aperture, f-stops and DOF. I'm willing but hesitant to move too far away from AUTO, so I welcomed the more technical side of it, even though I understood it more intuitively than logically.
I have a few exercises to do this week, working with the Av setting, adjusting ISO and playing with shutter speeds. This evening, there were some black yellow-tailed cockatoos in the yard, ripping a hakea to shreds. I used my long telezoom lens, but they were a bit far away. This (cropped and heavily edited) shot was the best of a bad bunch. Still, I used the manual settings, so that's a start. Should have used the tripod, but was in the middle of cooking dinner, so lots of shaking (that lens is bl.... heavy!). Peter gave us a useful cheat sheet, although I need to ponder it a while longer in order to use it effectively. Here's to more learning!