From now until October 18th, noon PDT, it's 5 Day Deal time again! The 5 Day Deal is a unique bundle of photographic training content. If you were to buy every item separately, you'd be looking at a total bill of over $2.750. Now, you're only paying $117 (+ European VAT unless you have a VAT ID), a savings of more than 95 percent! The total bundle contains over 75 hours of video training, several eBooks and over 1400 Lightroom presets, Photoshop actions and other digital tools. In total several gigabytes worth of training goodness.
Yes, but what's in it for me?
Of course, the real question is: 'What is this bundle worth to you?' Unless you're really into all genres of photography, probably not the full $2.500. But I can guarantee you that even if you're only remotely interested in photography, the 5 Day Deal bundle is certainly worth more than the measly $117 it's selling for. In fact, this bundle will do more for your photography than the umpteenth camera bag or a shiny new UV filter.
To help you determine if it's worth your dollar, I've broken the bundle down into three typical areas of interest: general postprocessing, landscape photography and portrait photography. You'll see that even if you're only really into one of those three areas, the bundle is a steal. Heck, if you're into two or more, you should already be ordering!
1. You're into Lightroom, Photoshop and Postprocessing
Postprocessing seems to be the main theme of this year's bundle, so if image editing is your thing, you're in for a treat. The bundle is ideal to hone your editing skills over these cold winter months and get you ready for a great start in 2018. There's hundreds of Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions, overlays like smoke and sun flares and loads of training videos. As you can see, I'm very honoured that my own Black & White Lightroom Preset pack is included in the bundle. But even if you already have that, there's still $2.767 of other stuff :-) The total value of the highlighted items alone is over $1.500. The 5 Day Deal price is less than ten percent of that. If you're a Lightroom or Photoshop user, this bundle really is a no-brainer.
2. You're mainly interested in nature photography, landscapes, cityscapes and how to postprocess these
The total value of the highlighted items is about $700. From previous 5 Day Deals, I remember the excellent quality of the stuff that people like Jimmy McIntyre and Christopher O'Donnell put out, so I'm looking forward to discovering their new courses. Also, note that I've only counted items that have a direct relationship to landscape photography. There are lots of resources, like the many preset packs, that will without a doubt also be useful when you're editing your landscape images.
3. You're mainly interested in portrait photography and portrait retouching
The total value of the highlighted items is almost $800. Again, there are some hidden gems in this line-up. For example, I really enjoyed Jeff Rojas' no-nonsense approach on how to interact with, light and photograph 'normal people'. After all, we not always get to choose who winds up in front of our lens!
Still in doubt?
Here's 5 final reasons why you should really consider this bundle:
10 percent of each sale goes to charity. Since 2013, people buying the 5DayDeal have raised over $1.000.000 for charity.
- This way of learning is one of the cheapest to improve your photography skills, at your own pace, when and where you want it. Furthermore, there's always a couple of hidden gems in bundles like this. For example, I really enjoyed Andrew S. Gibson's Black & White Presets and Jeff Rojas' posing and lighting video.
- A lot of this bundle's resources are new and if they aren't new, at least they've never been in any other 5 Day Deal bundle, so there's no overlap with previous 5 Day Deal purchases.
- The bundle is gone forever on October 18th, noon PDT.
- 10 percent of the entire turnover (not the profits, but the turnover, so almost $10 on every sale) goes to charity. Since the start of the 5 Day Deal in 2013, over $1.000.000 was donated to good causes. To that effect, upon checkout, you can opt for the 'Charity Match bundle'. This is an extra, separate bundle, worth over $900 which costs an extra $24,97, half of which goes to charity. Some 50% of people who bought the bundle so far have chosen this option. If you want to maximise your savings and in the mean time maximise your charity donation, look for the 'Charity Match' section, you'll see it on the 5 Day Deal page.
- But wait, there's more :-) Another extra option is the 'Pro Bundle Addon'. That's almost $500 worth of content for an add-on of only $12,47.
You see, I'm shutting up already. Yes. I'm that easy :-)
For an extra $24,97, you not only double the amount of money that goes to charity, but you also get access to over $900 worth of extra stuff. There are two photography courses in there, including the world-famous one by Fstoppers, one of the largest photo websites. Then, if you still have another $12,47 to burn, you can get the Pro Bundle Add-on as well...