We’ve spent about eight hours going through The Complete Photography Bundle II ($89), a limited time collection (only 3 days left!) of 42 photography educational resources and tools. There’s a significant amount of material and we have only scratched the surface. It’s 35 gigabytes in total, so make sure you have a nice fast Internet connection to download all this material!
The information included ranges from introductory eBooks to informative videos, with a healthy dose of Lightroom tools and presets. Not everything is for everyone, but there’s enough breadth included in this bundle that can surely justify the very reasonable $89 price. Here’s a look at some of our favorites from what we’ve seen, in a rare lengthy review from us:
In his OneLight v2.0 educational video, Zack Arias, a professional commercial and editorial photographer, talks you through the nuances of lighting. The first few hours has Zack talking through and testing different lighting options, with the help of Carl, a trusty stuffed squirrel. Later episodes has Zack talking through photoshoots. He’s very direct and informative, but at the same time funny and friendly, which makes this video series really approachable and effective.
The other tutorial that we enjoyed from the bundle was a Landscape Photography video tutorial from Nicole S. Young — this one focused on Lightroom, Photoshop, and other post-processing techniques to make landscape photography pop. It’s always fascinating to watch other photographers use image processing tools — you’re bound to pick up a few new techniques and ideas — and Nicole uses a variety of different tools to great effect. It’s also good reminder that many great photos are made, not just taken, and is encouragement to improve a great capture in post-process.
Many of the tutorials use masking as a technique for better post-processing; Topaz ReMask is another great tool included in the bundle to make masking easier. Historically, masking in Photoshop was a fiddly and time consuming process. Having not used Topaz ReMask before this, we’re impressed that a few quick gestures in Topaz is sufficient for extracting even a subtle mask from a noisy background.
We didn’t find everything in the bundle useful: one of the videos (Splash photography) was a rambly recording of studio sessions and not well edited. The bird photography video, while very informative, was really only a teaser to the next videos in the series (a tiny bit disappointing, but we’re not bird photographers). The eBooks were generally introductory and often too simplistic in nature. They were still good for someone newer to photography or looking to brush up on fundamental concepts and techniques, but didn’t have too much new info for an experienced photographer. There were a few more specific and detailed guides (such as creating better bokeh, long exposure photography) but there were few of these and we were definitely looking for them all to be of that depth. There was one particularly well-produced fashion posing guide from Lindsay Adler (pictured). Some of the poses are over the top but many are generally useful for portraiture. Posing subjects was always difficult…
In summary, we think The Complete Photography Bundle II is a good purchase, with all the different facets, it delivers value beyond the $89 price tag. It’s also nice to see that 10% of every purchase is donated to charity. Please note that this bundle only lasts until noon on October 20th. Reviewing this material this has reminded us that it’s important to remember that photography is more than just upgrading cameras and lenses (as this site is often focused) and learning is always important; we’re looking forward to slowly going over all this material in the months to come, to upgrade the people behind the cameras.
And,,, what are your thoughts on it….. Other than the large thud factor?
We wrote some of our opinions on it on our blog!
Thanks I must have missed this earlier…
Be sure to download all the content BEFORE November 14th. You won’t be able to download it after that.
I purchased the bundle, and, it does not contain $2000 worth of content.
I made the purchase because of the Zack Arias videos on lighting. I have his books and enjoy the way he trains. His videos have high production values.
There is not a 1-1 correspondence to what is listed on the marketing side of the promotion vs the big downloads. This reminds me of the CDs/DVDs back in the day that “bundled” old software for a low price.
As someone above has mentioned, some of the videos have less than ideal production values.
I was disappointed with the birding videos. These were definitely a 1.0 version. The last video mentioned that the next video, not contained as part of the bundle, would talk about how to attract birds. Here is a summary of the birding video: where camo, know your gear, be about 30 feet in front of the bird perching, have a clear area at least 30 feet behind the branch the bird is sitting on, if you are creating your own perch, the bird will go to the strongest part of the perch.
So, buyer beware
I agree that the birding videos were the most disappointing of the bunch (as mentioned in my review). I think the Zack Arias video is the centerpiece, if you can find a few other nuggets in there (I enjoyed the post processing videos and found Remask useful) then you have your value. The $2000 is just marketing, sadly.
what do you think about the LR presets and PS actions? worth it?
I’ve been wondering about the LR presets and PS actions as well…
Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to look at any of those yet! I will try to take a look this afternoon.
I checked out the LR presets and PS actions.
Off the top — I’d like to say, in general (not just for this bundle) I am not a fan of LR presets and creative PS actions (as opposed to PS actions for automation of a workflow).
After reviewing the presets, of which there are many, in many different creative styles… some are nice. I’m still not a fan though of LR presets 🙂 I prefer to monkey with LR myself until it looks just right. The presets offer a nice way to explore different possibilities though.