Entries in Saint Petersburg (264)
Light Painting & Night Photography DSLR Photography Lesson with Julie
Monday, February 13, 2012 at 11:49PM Jason Collin 
Light painting during Julie's DSLR Photography Lesson out at The Pier in St. Petersburg FloridaFor our third of four DSLR Photography Lessons I met Julie on a chilly St. Petersburg evening to practice long exposure and night photography. This type of shooting most definitely requires a tripod, and we pushed the legacy tripod Julie borrowed from her husband to its limits. We took the trolley out to The Pier, but first had a quick practice of on how to shoot abstract bokeh with her new 50mm lens.
Being a Monday night we basically had the entire Pier to ourselves, and especially so at my favorite water level spot upon a decaying concrete platform. Besides showing Julie how to make the usual long exposure shots of the St. Petersburg downtown skyline, we entered a kind of special effects world with light painting. For the above shot, I set my DSLR on my tripod with a 10 second shutter time. Using the LED light on the back of my iPhone 4 I "painted" from the tip of Julie's finger down onto the concrete. I did not astral project myself, I just moved quickly enough not to be fully exposed in the image.
We went on to practice light trail shots and a number of other things too. It was an action packed lesson for sure and Julie was great managing with an unfamiliar tripod and getting adept at changing the settings on her Canon 60D in the dark.
Architecture & Exposure DSLR Photography Lesson St. Petersburg Florida with Rebecca
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 12:51PM Jason Collin 
The Waterfall at Signature Place Tower in downtown St. Petersburg - Rebecca with her Canon XSiFor our second of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons I met Rebecca at the same spot in downtown St. Petersburg where we began by looking at some photographs she had taken since our first lesson with her Canon XSi. Rebecca is following my most recommended path for anyone taking my 4-pack of lessons (or even a single lesson) by first taking a lot of notes during the content heavy first lesson, then shooting a lot between the first and second lessons. This allowed me to see her progress and give very specific help to improve her shots. In fact, we spent the entire second lesson practicing how to get a correct exposure given differing lighting (backlight, side light, etc) with a focus on architecture subject matter.
For this practice I had Rebecca start in Aperture priority mode (A, Nikon; Av, Canon) at f/11 which is recommended for our typical sunny Florida days. Then depending on where the sun is relevant to the subject, we were able to find the limits of A-priority mode. This is how I taught Rebecca to find the limit: 1.) once the shutter speed goes below 1/60th, increase aperture 2.) Once the aperture limit of f/5.6 is hit along with the 1/60th shutter speed limit, then increase ISO
When A-priority mode was choosing a shutter speed too fast even at f/11, then I had her switch to manual mode, staying at f/11 while manually setting a slower shutter speed and tweaking the latter to produce the desired balalnce between for example enough blueness in the sky, but also enough detail in the shadows of buildings.
Using these real world skills for setting up a properly exposed shot, plus the architecture composition tips I passed on to her, I am sure Rebecca will be able to make some great shots when she visits New York City next week.
Shore Acres Real Estate Photography St. Petersburg Florida pool home
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 3:28PM Jason Collin 
Shore Acres Pool Home HDR Real Estate Photography - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseNot every real estate photography assignment in Florida is for a multi-million dollar water view home. There are plenty of other moderately priced homes on the market that need photographs made of them too, which is why I offer flexible rates for my commercial real estate photography services. The home featured in this blog post is in Shore Acres area of St. Petersburg. If you like it, the listing will be with Crown Realty Group. Tell Haike I sent you.
A new backsplash brightens things in this Shore Acres home - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/2 sec tripod mounted with cable releaseI do not normally include HDR images when photographing a job in this price range, but for the lead pool shot I did as a bonus as it just looked night and day different. All the interiors were single exposures, like this one of the remodeled kitchen. I usually shoot at below eye level for interiors, but for kitchens I prefer to shoot from at or above eye level to show all the counter level features.
Huge flatscreen TV mounted in this Shore Acres living room - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1.6 sec tripod mounted with cable releaseWhen doing single exposure interiors, as you can see I keep window blinds closed and pointed up whenever possible. I close them pointed up so that no bright spots are cast onto the interior itself, but rather bounced off the ceiling making the light from them useful. I had the client move a large armchair from where I was standing so I could better photograph the living room.
Home office full of CDs in Shore Acres Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1 sec tripod mounted with cable releaseFor small home interior rooms, I choose to shoot in portrait orientation from the door way. This creates the largest sense of space since floor to ceiling can be seen. I photograph bathrooms the same way since they often are not large enough to even enter and photograph, especially with a tripod.
This pool home for sale in Shore Acres St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/50th tripod mounted with cable releaseFor the exterior shot, I try to include as little of the neighboring properties as possible, even if it means making a tighter shot like the one above. I lowered my tripod enough so that the large live oak in the front yard framed the home rather than obscured the view of it.
Canon T3i DSLR Photography Lesson 1-on-1 in St. Petersburg Florida with Ren
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 4:07PM Jason Collin 
Ren taking shelter from a light rain with his Canon T3i in downtown St. Petersburg Florida during our first photography lesson.Something very rare happened during my first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson with new student Ren (referred by Stefanie, thank you!) and his Canon T3i, it started to rain, or rather really just a hard mist. Several lessons over the years have been rained out and rescheduled, but for it to be not raining then start raining during the lesson, that has only happened a few times before. Fortunately, the covered breezeway of the Museum of Fine Arts not only provides protection from the rain, it allows all the same things to be practiced had the sun been out and we covered the usual spots around the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront. It was also my first time to get hands on with the Canon T3i DSLR.
Ren works in a company that uses a lot of gear, gadgets and tech and whose co-workers have a lot of their own which helped him make the jump to the DSLR world. He has already taken about 6,000 photos he said, though only around 2 out of 4 he ends up liking. This is totally fine though for someone starting out in photography and as a mostly self-taught photographer myself, I went through a very similar process teaching myself about aperture, shutter speed, ISO and even focus modes (which did baffle me for an afternoon believe it or not). Now, through that real-world learning experience, I can pass on a very practical DSLR photography teaching method to all my students.
Ren also audio-recorded the lesson so he will have the pleasure of hearing my voice and jokes again and again on how to produce well exposed and sharp images in real world situations. I recommend some kind of note taking during the lessons, unless one has a photographic memory of course!
Besides setting the settings correctly for any given shot, one must be adept at physcially knowing how to actually manipulte the many buttons and dials on a DSLR. Even just two seconds wasted fiddling with the wrong button can mean the difference between making and missing a photograph. As I recommend to everyone, I suggested that Ren keep his DSLR next to him on the sofa while watching TV and work on mastering how to change all the commonly used exposure settings.
Ren will return to the museum above on Friday on a school trip with his daughter. I look forward to seeing his photographs applying what he learned today.
1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Florida with Rebecca & her Canon XSi
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 1:08AM Jason Collin 
Rebecca happy to be out of auto-mode with her Canon XSi at the end of our first of four photography lessons.Thanks to a referral from current DSLR Photography Lesson student, Julie, I met Rebecca in downtown St. Petersburg on a sunny Wednesday morning for our first of four lessons with her Canon XSi. Up until the time of our lesson, Rebecca, like many of my students, was only shooting in one of the auto-modes on her exposure dial. Therefore, the first thing we did was instantly start using aperture priority mode, and even in our first two hours we also went on to use shutter priority mode and even full manual mode!
Not only that, Rebecca had yet to even use her new Canon 55-250mm lens! So I showed her my recommended technique for changes lenses in the field as we went back and forth using the 55-250mm lens and her 18-55mm standard zoom lens.
For someone claiming to "know nothing," Rebecca was very fast to pick up on the basic photography terms and concepts needed to be able to properly make a photograph in typical Florida bright daylight conditions. Perhaps her fast uptake was due to her taken lengthy notes on my four step process for setting up a shot. I highly recommend note taking, though few students actually come with notepad and pen in hand.
For our already scheduled second lesson we will head out to The Pier, one of my favorite shooting locations, to practice bird-in-flight shots.
