Kathy with her Nikon D7000 during our first DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaOn a sunny October afternoon I met Kathy for our first of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons with her Nikon D7000 in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. She had a Nikon D70 for many years, but only used it on auto-mode. Then when she got the D7000 a few months ago, she was using that on auto-mode also so during our lessons I will help her leave auto-mode behind for good. In fact, within thiry minutes of our lesson today I had her shooting in manual mode for both still and moving subjects.
The Nikon D7000 has two convenient dials for quickly changing aperture and shutter speed, and a top LCD for quickly checking all important settings (aperture, shutter speed, ISO, WB, focus mode) at a glance. I advised Kathy to not hunt all around the camera for checking settings, but instead simply just refer to that convenient top LCD display each and every time.
I was also able to help clear up a misconception many of my students have concerning focus and focus mode. Many come to me thinking they have to manually focus shots in manual exposure mode, or that auto-focus is only used for certain kinds of shots. Of course focus mode has no effect on exposure and auto-focus is pretty much always used. Manual exposure mode is very useful, manual focus mode is hardly ever used anymore.
I look forward to my next lesson with Kathy which is already set for tomorrow, same time, same location!
