Camera Playground · learn by doing

The camera simulator that teaches you photography.

Learn the craft on screen. Live it off screen.

A 3D photography park in your browser, with a course of 64 lessons. Pick up a real camera, a real lens and a real flash, change one setting, take the shot again and see why the photo changed. Then close the app: the photos that matter are out there.

Free 5-day trial, no credit card · then €97 once, every update included · No camera? Start with your phone

Camera Playground: a portrait in the Portrait Studio with an 85 mm lens at ƒ/1.2; the backdrop is soft and the camera panel shows Av mode at 1/640 s
The Product Studio in the app: focus on a perfume bottle at ƒ/2.8, the lipstick in front out of focus
A beagle on the grass of the Pet Park, shot at 135 mm from 55 cm above the ground
Frame, the composition and lenses guide, pointing at the screen
FrameOpen up to ƒ/1.2 and watch the backdrop go soft. Now try ƒ/8.
01the second before she laughs 02rain on the bus window 03your dog, mid-jump 04golden hour on the walk home 05the last night of the trip 06your grandmother's hands 07friends, 3 a.m., kitchen light

Built by the photographer and teacher behind Canal da Foto, the online photography school for beginners from Brazil, teaching since 2013.

  • 64lessons in 9 tracks
  • 50guided on location
  • 149cameras and phones
  • 161real lenses
  • 28real flash units
  • 14languages
Sound familiar?

You bought a real camera. So why do your phone photos still look better?

It isn't the camera. A good phone and a good camera can make photos nobody can tell apart. Your phone just makes a thousand decisions for you before you tap, and your camera hands them back to you. Learn to make those decisions, and any camera, even the one in your pocket, takes the photo you meant.

Blurry, exactly when it matters.

She laughs, you press the button, and she's a smudge. Again.

Kick, the motion guideKick: that's shutter speed. We'll freeze it together.Practise it: Motion Lane, with the duck speed lever

Everything turns orange indoors.

The room looked cosy. The photo looks like it was dipped in tea.

Roxy, the colour guideRoxy: your eyes adjust to colour. Your camera needs telling.Practise it: White Balance Lab, 2,000 K to 7,000 K

Auto mode decides what matters.

The sky is perfect and your friend is a black shape. Or the other way round.

Needle, the exposure guideNeedle: I measure light, but I'm easy to fool. You'll learn when to overrule me.Practise it: the histogram and the 18% meter
Real situations

Every lesson starts with a photo you’ll want to take.

Each place in the park is built around one decision photographers make in real life. Here are five of them, exactly as they look in the app today.

Portrait Studio

A portrait of a friend, the background soft

Put an 85 mm lens on, open up to ƒ/1.2 and watch the backdrop soften in the live view. In Av the camera picks the shutter speed for you. Every photo also comes with an overhead lighting diagram of the setup.

85 mm · ƒ/1.2 · 1/640 s · Av
Then, outsideA friend by a big window, your longest lens or your phone’s portrait camera, and the background far behind them.
Portrait Studio · Light meter

The strobe your camera can’t see

Switch the key light to a real studio flash and measure it at her face with a hand-held light meter. One click sets the aperture. In the Professional preview the viewfinder stays dark until the flash fires, just like in a real studio, so you meter and test.

Godox AD600Pro II · the meter reads ƒ/9
Then, outsideThe same habit works with any flash, even one speedlight on a stand in your living room: measure, set, shoot, check.
Product Studio

The product photo for an online shop

On the tabletop, click to focus on the bottle that sells and let the lipstick and its cap fall out of focus. Move the light, change the backdrop, compare two versions side by side.

ƒ/2.8 · focus on the perfume
Then, outsideYour own product on a sheet of white card next to a window, focus on the label.
Fairground at blue hour

Fairground lights after sunset

Close the aperture and the shutter follows. Eight seconds turn the Ferris wheel and the carousel into rings of light, because the app really adds up the motion during the exposure. Then ride the wheel and shoot from a gondola.

35 mm · ƒ/22 · 8 s · ISO 100 · tripod
Then, outsideYour camera or phone on something steady, any street with traffic after dark, two seconds or more.
Pet Park

Your dog, running after a ball

In the Pet Park the dogs come when you call them and fetch a ball. Get down to their eye level, pick a fast shutter speed and keep the focus on the eyes.

135 mm · ƒ/4 · 1/1250 s · 55 cm above the grass
Then, outsideLie on the grass with your camera ready. Don’t call your dog. Wait until it looks up.

Every screenshot and photo on this page is real Camera Playground output from the version online today (English interface). Nothing is mocked up or retouched. Crew portraits and lesson covers were made with the help of AI tools.

Start practising5 days free · no credit card · then €97 once
How it works

Three steps. The last one happens outside.

FRAME 01

Pick a real situation.

A portrait, a product, your dog, the fairground at night. Open the map and fly there, or start the lesson that fits: every place in the park is built around one decision photographers make.

FRAME 02

Practise with a guide.

The guide gives you a brief like a client would, shows you on the real controls and checks every frame with real numbers. Every photo lands in your gallery with all its settings. Nobody is watching, nothing is wasted.

FRAME 03

Close the app. Go shoot.

Each lesson ends with a field card: the same exercise for your own camera or phone, out in the world. That’s where it starts to count.

The course

64 lessons. From your first photo to a client’s brief.

Nine tracks and four levels, in an order where each lesson only asks for what the earlier ones taught. 50 lessons are guided on location by the crew, 6 mix a short reading with 3D practice and 8 are illustrated readings. About 16 hours in all, 5 to 35 minutes each. Open a track to see its lessons.

2Start hereHold the camera, the big picture
  1. The 6 knowledges behind every great photoreading + 3D · 15 min
  2. No tripod? Sharp photos by hand3D, guided · 12 min
11ExposureShutter, aperture, ISO, the meter
  1. Your first exposure: filling the glass3D, guided · 15 min
  2. Freeze it or show it: the bouncing ball3D, guided · 14 min
  3. ISO, the last setting: a party without flash3D, guided · 12 min
  4. Stops and EV: same brightness, many looks3D, guided · 15 min
  5. S, A or M? Pick the mode for the moment3D, guided · 15 min
  6. Why white comes out grey: the 18% meter3D, guided · 12 min
  7. Too dark or too bright? Read the histogram3D, guided · 12 min
  8. White dresses, snow and black cats: exposure compensation3D, guided · 12 min
  9. The S.A.I. wheel: a cheat sheet for your bagreading + 3D · 5 min
  10. Rescue the camera: wild settings at a wedding3D, guided · 20 min
  11. Measure your light, don't guess it3D, guided · 15 min
6Focus & lensesSharpness, depth, focal length
  1. Who's sharp? Depth of field with bowling pins3D, guided · 12 min
  2. Sharp eyes: choose the focus mode3D, guided · 14 min
  3. Blur the background: a LinkedIn headshot3D, guided · 15 min
  4. Holiday view: sharp from the railing to the hills3D, guided · 15 min
  5. Image stabilisation: lens or body?reading + 3D · 15 min
  6. Test a lens before you buy it3D, guided · 15 min
9CompositionWhere to put things
  1. The guide of thirds: a friend in a square3D, guided · 12 min
  2. Shot sizes: one moment, four frames3D, guided · 14 min
  3. Level horizons and straight verticals3D, guided · 14 min
  4. Fill the frame, lose the clutter3D, guided · 12 min
  5. Negative space: room to breathe3D, guided · 15 min
  6. Symmetry and centring with intent3D, guided · 12 min
  7. Leading lines down Palm Street3D, guided · 15 min
  8. Frame within a frame3D, guided · 15 min
  9. Creativity exercisesreading + 3D · 10 min
15LightNatural light, studio, flash
  1. Light is your new pencilreading + 3D · 12 min
  2. Soft or hard light?3D, guided · 12 min
  3. Midday portrait? Find open shade3D, guided · 12 min
  4. One light, five moods3D, guided · 15 min
  5. Twice as far, a quarter of the light3D, guided · 15 min
  6. Key and fill: friendly or dramatic3D, guided · 15 min
  7. Catchlights: eyes that look alive3D, guided · 15 min
  8. Sunset silhouette, fill flash and ND3D, guided · 15 min
  9. Two-light sandwich: a fitness poster3D, guided · 15 min
  10. Three-light portrait: the team page3D, guided · 20 min
  11. Gobos: paint the light with patterns3D, guided · 18 min
  12. The black box: a studio portrait at home3D, guided · 17 min
  13. TTL or manual? When to trust the flash3D, guided · 15 min
  14. The lamp is not the flash3D, guided · 12 min
  15. f/1.4 with studio flash: a bridal portrait3D, guided · 15 min
6ColourWhite balance, gels, colour schemes
  1. Why are my indoor photos orange?3D, guided · 15 min
  2. Warm skin, blue world: gels and white balance3D, guided · 15 min
  3. RGB, CMYK and the colour wheelsreading · 10 min
  4. Colour schemes that workreading + 3D · 20 min
  5. Neon portrait: mixing coloured light3D, guided · 15 min
  6. Blue hour portrait: gel the flash, paint the sky3D, guided · 18 min
5Motion & nightFreeze, blur, light trails
  1. Freeze the ducks, or let them fly3D, guided · 12 min
  2. Fan wall: how fast is fast?3D, guided · 12 min
  3. Panning: a sharp car, a streaked street3D, guided · 12 min
  4. Write your name in light3D, guided · 12 min
  5. A night at the fair3D, guided · 15 min
3Real-life projectsWhole jobs, start to finish
  1. A headshot session for a friend3D, guided · 25 min
  2. Product photos for a web shop3D, guided · 25 min
  3. Final exam: four client briefs3D, guided · 35 min
7Gear & buyingCameras, lenses, accessories
  1. What all those camera buttons doreading · 20 min
  2. Which camera should you buy?reading · 30 min
  3. Read a lens name, pick the right lensreading · 30 min
  4. Inside the camera: from the lens to the sensorreading · 12 min
  5. Inside the sensor: pixels, RAW and moiréreading · 15 min
  6. Fire a flash off the camerareading · 8 min
  7. Lens adapters and speed boostersreading · 10 min
  1. FoundationsNo experience needed17 lessons
  2. Core skillsAfter the foundations26 lessons
  3. Creative controlCombine several skills18 lessons
  4. ProClient-level work3 lessons

A plan made for you

Tell the welcome tour what you want to photograph and how much you know, and your lessons come first. A “continue” card takes you back to where you stopped.

A brief, like a client’s

Every lesson starts with a real request. The tasks tick off live while you change the camera, so you see what worked the moment it works.

Show me

Stuck? The guide takes the real controls and shows each step, then gives your settings back the way you left them.

Progress & certificate

Finish with a final exam and a certificate.

The course ends with four client briefs, graded by Rio, your rival, and course tests along the way. Pass them and get a certificate of completion in your name, with a code anyone can check.

  • Quests: the same brief with no hints, graded by Rio.
  • Points and 14 badges as you go, and a card that takes you back to your last lesson.
  • Progress in your account: continue on another device.
  • Certificate with the full version.
Free 5-day trial

Start with these 3 lessons.

Create a free 360apps account and try Camera Playground for 5 days, no credit card. The trial opens a reduced version: the Portrait Studio, the Lens Lab and the Motion Blur Lab, one camera and one phone, and these three lessons.

  1. The 6 knowledges behind every great photo15 min · reading + 3D
  2. Your first exposure: filling the glass15 min · 3D, guided
  3. Freeze it or show it: the bouncing ball14 min · 3D, guided
Try free for 5 days
Meet the crew

Eight guides and a rival. Each one is a piece of photography you can see.

They talk in short bubbles, dare you to try things and get out of the way when you’re shooting.

Sol, with a wide-brimmed hat, a scarf and a map
I move across the sky. So should your plans. Let’s catch me low.

Sol

Natural light
Needle, with round glasses and a hand-held light meter
I think everything is 18% grey. Snow fools me every time. It won’t fool you.

Needle

Exposure
Ghost, in a white hooded cloak, with a tripod and a lantern
Leave the shutter open for two seconds and I’ll appear in your photo.

Ghost

Long exposure
Glow, with curly blond hair and a camera with a small flash
I’m tiny, that’s why my shadows are sharp. Bring me closer and watch.

Glow

Small light
Volt, next to a studio light on a stand
One light, five moods. Want to see?

Volt

Studio light
Kick, in a cap and a red flannel shirt, with a skateboard and a camera
Bet you can’t freeze me at 1/60.

Kick

Motion
Roxy, with pink hair and roller skates, in a teal jumpsuit
Pink and teal. Opposites pull the eye. Yours too.

Roxy

Colour
Frame, with a beard, a scarf and a camera
Before you change a setting, change where you stand.

Frame

Composition & lenses
Rio, with a red bandana and a camera
Same street, same light. Let’s see whose photo is better.

Rio

Your rival

Crew portraits were made with the help of AI tools.

The crew as mentors

Each guide meets you on location.

Walk up to a place in the park and its guide is waiting: Frame for composition and lenses, Needle for exposure and the light meter, Volt for studio light and flash, Glow for small and big light, Sol for natural light, Roxy for colour, Kick for motion and Ghost for long exposures. They check every frame with real numbers: how sharp, how bright, how far off.

  • Show me. The guide takes the real controls and walks through each setting, then hands them back.
  • See what is normally invisible. The sharp zone drawn on the ground, the meter’s reading, the histogram.
  • Lessons and quests. A lesson guides you. A quest gives the same brief with no hints, and Rio grades every capture.
  • Field card. Each lesson ends with the same exercise for your own camera or phone.
Meet the crew in the app5 days free · no credit card · then €97 once
New · Flash and light

The light your eye never sees. Measure it, like a pro.

A studio flash fires for a fraction of a second, too fast for your eye. Camera Playground gives you the tools photographers use to work with it, and three lessons built around them.

  • 28Real flash unitsFrom Canon, Nikon, Sony and Godox speedlights to Profoto and broncolor studio packs, with their real output and recycle time.
  • TTLManual or TTLTTL fires a real pre-flash and reads it through the camera’s metering mode, on the units that have it. Flash exposure compensation, high-speed sync, front or rear curtain.
  • ƒ/9A hand-held light meterIncident readings for ambient light and flash, head by head, with the key-to-fill ratio, plus a 1° spot. One click sets the aperture on the camera.
  • LAMPModelling lamps, three previewsGuided shows the flash result, Studio shows the modelling lamp by eye, Professional works like a real studio: the viewfinder can’t see the flash.
  • HISTLive histogramLuminance and RGB in the viewfinder, so you see clipped highlights before you shoot.
  • MAPLighting diagramsDistances, heights, power and colour temperature of every light, seen from above, to take to a real shoot.
The meter card reads ƒ/6.3 at 1/200 s: set the camera, take the shot.
The photo: ƒ/6.3, 1/200 s, ISO 100, key light set from the meter.
The lighting diagram the app exports.
Inside Camera Playground

A whole photography park. Every place teaches one decision.

Start at Aperture Plaza, open the map and fly anywhere, by day or by night. An outdoor park, two studios and four labs, all in one app.

The park

Start · Park map

Aperture Plaza

The map table: pick any place in the park and fly there.

Light trails · Action

Fairground & Skatepark

The carousel and the Ferris wheel at night, skaters by day: bulbs become rings of light, tricks freeze mid-air.

Aerial views

Ferris Wheel ride

Ride a gondola, look around, lean out a little and shoot the park from 20 m up.

Eye level · Fast subjects

Pet Park

Dogs that come when you call and fetch a ball: shoot them at their level, in the sun and in the shade.

Telephoto · Wildlife

Safari Plain

Wildlife at a distance: what a long lens does to space.

Long exposure

Light Painting

Painters write with torches in the dark. Leave the shutter open and watch the word appear.

Panning

Panning

Follow a moving car with the camera: a sharp subject and a streaked world.

Freeze or blur

Motion Lane

Ducks at a speed you set with a lever: freeze them, or let them blur.

Depth of field

Bowling Pins

Pins at marked distances: see how much is sharp at each aperture, with the sharp zone drawn on the ground.

Light size · Shadows

Soft & Hard Light

Same subject, same power: a small flash and a 1 m softbox side by side.

Open shade

Open Shade Tunnel

A subject just inside the mouth of a tunnel: soft light from the open sky.

Leading lines

Palm Street

Two rows of palms run to the tunnel: line them up and let them lead the eye.

Wide angle · Golden hour

Landscape Lookout

A raised deck facing the hills: wide angles, layers of landscape and a low sun.

Close focus

Close-Up

Get close, where focus gets thin and every centimetre counts.

Exposure

Metering

What your light meter sees, and when to trust it.

Studios & labs

Portrait lighting · Posing

Portrait Studio

A paper backdrop, flashes and continuous lights, modifiers, gels, models to pose and studio dogs.

Tabletop · Reflections

Product Studio

A tabletop sweep with perfume glass, cosmetics and reflections.

Colour temperature

White Balance Lab

One lamp at a time, from a 2,000 K street lamp to 7,000 K shade, over a grey card and a colour chart.

Sharpness · Distortion

Lens Lab

Test charts for sharpness, distortion and vignetting: test a lens before you buy it.

Shutter speed · Motion blur

Motion Blur Lab

A bouncing ball and a wall of four fans: one shutter speed, four kinds of blur.

Out-of-focus light

Bokeh Lab

Bokeh up close: aperture shape, cat’s-eye, coma and diffraction.

Real gear

Practise with the camera you own, or the one you want.

149 camera bodies and phones and 161 lenses, from Micro Four Thirds to medium format and cinema, including Leica M, Leica Q3 and Hasselblad X. The Lens Finder shows only lenses that really fit the body you chose.

Camera Finder: filter by brand and sensor, read the specs.
Lens Finder: only lenses that fit your body.
  • Lenses that draw like the real onesDistortion, vignetting, colour fringing and corner sharpness come from published measurements of each real lens.
  • Bodies with their own sensorSensor size, ISO range and noise of each body: feel the difference between APS-C and full frame in the same scene.
  • Try before you buyPut the lens you are saving for on the body you own, and see if it changes your photos.
  • Autofocus like the real cameraA DSLR focuses with the AF points of its own viewfinder, or switch it to Live View: Dual Pixel AF on the Canons that have it, slower contrast AF on the rest. Eye detection and spot metering at the AF point only where the real body offers them.
No camera yet?

Start with the one in your pocket.

Pick your own phone in the simulator and it behaves like it: the same camera modules, the same automatic decisions, the same limits. Learn why your photos look the way they do, and how to make them better, before you spend anything.

  • 42Real phones, real camera modulesiPhone 11 to iPhone 18 Pro, Galaxy A15 to S25 Ultra, Pixel 7a to Pixel 10 Pro, plus Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus.
  • TAPTap to focus. Slide the sun.What you tap is what your phone focuses and exposes for. Long-press to lock it.
  • 0.5×0.5×, 1×, 3× are different camerasEach button switches to a separate lens and sensor. In between, your phone is cropping, and you’ll see what that costs.
  • PROPro mode and the LED flashTake over ISO, shutter speed, white balance or focus, and learn the honest limits of a tiny LED.
  • GYROOn your phone, for realCamera Playground runs on the phone itself, with its own layout and a round shutter button. Hold it up and turn: the gyroscope aims the camera. Add it to your home screen and it opens like an app.

Outgrowing your phone? Switch to a camera body in the same scene and see exactly what changes.

Camera Playground on a phone: the viewfinder with a round shutter button, the exposure strip and the camera controls underneath
Roxy, the colour guide
Roxy0.5× isn’t zoom. It’s a whole other camera. Try it.
From the screen to the street

Practise on Tuesday. Keep it forever on the weekend.

Every lesson you rehearse in the simulator is a decision you’ll make again outside, when it counts. Here’s what one week can look like.

A young woman practising photography in the simulator on her laptop late at night, her camera next to her
Tue · 23:40 · practice
Tonight: soft light from a softbox, then a skater frozen mid-air.
The same young woman crouching at a skatepark at golden hour, photographing her friend mid-air
Sat · 18:52 · skatepark
The freeze, for real: 1/1000 s, low angle, her friend mid-air.
The same young woman photographing her laughing grandmother by a kitchen window with her phone
Sun · 15:10 · grandma’s kitchen
The softbox lesson, no softbox needed: a big window, a phone, her laugh.

Rehearsed on a screen. Kept from a moment that was really there.

In the age of generated images

AI can make a picture. Only you can live one.

Anyone can type a prompt and get a perfect sunset. Nobody can generate the night your friends stayed up until the sky turned pink, the way your grandmother laughed at the table, the street you walked on your last day abroad. Those photos only exist if someone was there, paying attention, ready.

That’s what we teach. Not filters. Not presets. Attention, timing and light: the things decided at the click that can’t be fixed afterwards.

A studio portrait made in Camera Playground, developing like a print in a darkroom
you were there.
Where to start

What do you want to photograph?

Pick one to see where you’d practise it in the park and which lessons teach it.

From Canal da Foto students

Same method. Now in the simulator.

“I was afraid of my own camera. I had a DSLR, but I couldn’t get out of automatic mode… The interactive material makes everything clearer and makes you think before you pick up the camera.”
Claudio Teruya · São Paulo
“The quality of my photos improved a lot after I started studying with these courses, and I haven’t even finished them yet.”
Kellen Gomes · Canal da Foto student
“If I didn’t understand something, I could go back as many times as I wanted, without the embarrassment of every other student staring at me.”
Regiany Zehnder · Florianópolis

Students of the Canal da Foto courses. Camera Playground teaches the same method, by the same teacher, now through practice in the simulator. Translated from Portuguese. canaldafoto.com.br

Why practise in a simulator

A practice world that behaves like the real one.

Real photography is expensive to practise: models get tired, the sun won’t wait, a studio costs money by the hour, and every mistake costs a moment. Here, you can try again.

Light that obeys physics

Move a lamp twice as far away and you lose two stops, just like in real life.

Real lenses, real blur

Depth of field and bokeh come from lens optics, not a blur filter.

Motion you can freeze

Skaters, ducks, dogs, a carousel, spinning fans. Blur comes from real movement, the subject’s and your own hand’s.

The sun by the hour

Sunrise, golden hour, blue hour or night, with clouds, haze and the moon. Long shadows on demand.

A studio open at 3 a.m.

Lights, modifiers and a model who never gets tired of one more try. Ten minutes on a lunch break is enough.

Every photo, with its settings

The Gallery keeps the EXIF of every shot. Compare two side by side, or restore the scene and the settings and try again.

Already shooting in manual? Everything is there.

Full manual control from the first minute: M, Av, Tv and P, ISO, exposure compensation, ND filters, four metering modes, AF-S, AF-C and manual focus, white balance by lamp type or Kelvin, 28 real flashes with TTL and HSS, a light meter, gels, modifiers and lighting diagrams you can export.

Questions

Asked, answered.

Needle, the exposure guide
NeedleStill unsure? Start the free trial and take the first lesson. It takes fifteen minutes.
Do I need a camera to start learning?

No. You practise in Camera Playground, in your browser, with a real camera body or with your own phone’s model. When you go outside to try it for real, any camera works, including the one in your phone.

How much does it cost?

€97, paid once, plus VAT where it applies (added at checkout). No subscription. Every update is included: new lessons, places and gear arrive as free updates.

How does the free trial work?

Create a free 360apps account and you get 5 days free, no credit card needed. During the trial Camera Playground opens in a reduced version: the Portrait Studio, the Lens Lab and the Motion Blur Lab, one camera body and one phone, a few lenses and the first 3 lessons, with up to 10 photos in the gallery. Buy it once and everything opens: the whole park, all 64 lessons, every camera, lens and flash, the course tests and the certificate.

How much is there to learn?

A whole course: 64 lessons in 9 tracks and 4 levels, from holding the camera to exposure, focus, composition, light, colour, motion and night, real-life projects and buying gear. 50 are guided on location by the crew, each with a Show me demonstration and a quest; 6 combine a short reading with 3D practice; 8 are illustrated readings. About 16 hours in all. It ends with a final exam of four client briefs.

Is there a certificate?

Yes. With the full version, the course tests and the final exam lead to a certificate of completion in your name, with a code anyone can check online.

Can I learn studio flash?

Yes. There are 28 real flash units, from speedlights to studio packs, in Manual or TTL, with flash exposure compensation, high-speed sync and rear-curtain sync, plus a hand-held light meter, modelling lamps and three light-preview levels (Guided, Studio, Professional). Three lessons are built around them: “Measure your light, don’t guess it”, “TTL or manual? When to trust the flash” and “The lamp is not the flash”.

Can I learn with my smartphone?

Yes, in two ways. Inside the app, choose your phone from 42 models by Apple, Samsung, Google, Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus: Camera Playground uses that phone’s camera modules, its automatic exposure, tap to focus with the exposure slider, Pro mode and its LED flash. And the app itself runs on your phone, so you can practise wherever you are, then try the same shot with the real one.

Which devices does it run on?

Any modern browser with WebGL 2 (Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox) on a laptop, desktop, tablet or phone. Nothing to install, and you can add it to your home screen to open it like an app. A laptop or desktop from the last five years or so shows the most detail; Quiet, Balanced and High performance settings (20, 30 or 60 fps) keep the fans quiet.

Will what I learn work on my real camera?

Yes. Camera Playground uses the same controls real cameras use: aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focus modes, white balance, metering and flash. The decisions you practise are the same on any brand.

Which cameras and lenses can I use?

149 camera bodies and smartphones: 107 cameras from Micro Four Thirds to medium format and cinema, including Leica M, Leica Q3 and Hasselblad X, and 42 phones. 161 lenses, each drawn with its published distortion, vignetting, colour fringing and corner sharpness. The Lens Finder only shows lenses that fit the body you chose.

Is it a game or a photography course?

Both. It’s a 3D photography park you can explore freely, and a course of 64 lessons with a crew of guides, quests graded by Rio, your rival, points and badges. Every photo keeps its settings, so you always see what changed.

I’m a complete beginner. Is it too technical?

No. A short welcome tour shows you the controls, and a few questions about what you want to photograph put the right lessons first. Each lesson changes one thing at a time and the guides explain each setting as they go.

I already shoot in manual mode. Is there anything for me?

Yes. Every control is there from the start: full manual exposure, focus and metering modes, the live histogram, real flashes with TTL, a light meter, modifiers and gels, white balance by lamp type, exportable lighting diagrams and a finder for comparing bodies and lenses before you buy.

Who is it made for? Is it for kids?

It is designed for teens and adults: people who own a camera they barely use, people coming back to photography, and anyone who wants photos that feel real.

Why learn photography when AI can generate images?

AI can generate a picture of anything, but it cannot have been there. The photos people keep are of real moments, and those depend on attention, timing and light at the moment of the click, which is exactly what Camera Playground trains.

Where are my practice photos stored?

Your practice photos and their settings stay in your browser. Your lesson progress is saved to your 360apps account, so you can continue on another device. There are no ads, no analytics and no tracking cookies inside the app.

Which languages are available?

Camera Playground speaks 14 languages: English, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), Indonesian and Hindi.

Can teachers use it in class?

Yes. Students can practise in a studio and with lenses the school doesn’t own. For a class or a whole school, write to us at support@360apps.net.

Pages from the free chapter: the guide of thirds
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