First course: FUJIFILM X-M5 · XC15-45mm kit lens
Master your camera, properly.
A photographer’s workbook for the X-M5 and its kit lens — the first course in the MasterYourLens library, with more cameras coming soon. Fifty-four lessons that answer two questions: what does this setting do, and what should I use right now — and why.
54 lessons 10 modules 9 field recipes no sign-in
Start where you are
Four ways in
Day one out of the box, an evening of theory, a specific situation, or a setting you cannot find in the menu.
First hour
Just unboxed it
Charge, choose a card, format it, mount the lens, and take one deliberate photograph before you touch anything else.
Theory
Why is it blurry?
The exposure triangle told through the dials you actually turn, and the handheld rule for a body with no stabiliser.
In the field
Settings, now
Nine recipes — portraits, street, night, food, motion — each with a starting point and a fix-it table.
Reference
Cheat sheets
Shutter speed by subject, film simulation by scene, the beginner menu setup — printable, and built for one hand.
Honest about the kit
Three limits, and why they make you better
This course does not pretend the X-M5 is something it is not. Every recommendation is written for the camera as it actually is, which is why the settings work.
No viewfinder
You compose on the screen. So you learn to read a histogram instead of trusting your eyes in sunlight, and you shoot from chest height with the screen tilted — steadier and less conspicuous than arms out at eye level.
No in-body stabilisation
Steadiness comes from the lens’s OIS, worth about three stops, plus your technique. So you learn the 30 / 60 / 125 / 250 rule and stop blaming the camera for blur your subject caused.
f/3.5 only at 15mm
Zooming to 45mm silently costs 1 1/3 stops. So you learn that distance and light separate a subject far better than an f-number does — the instinct photographers who start on fast primes often never build.
Free and open
Ten modules. Start with the first hour.
No account, no email, no paywall. Your progress is kept for you as you go, and every lesson stays open whether you finish the one before it or not.