Henry setting up a shot using his Sony Alpha A230 and newly acquired Tamron 70-300mm lens on The Pier in St. Petersburg

Henry took his first DSLR Photography Lesson with me back in April.  Then he had no telephoto lens.  After the lesson he began doing research into which lens to get and last week his new Tamron 70-300mm f/4-f/5.6 lens for his Sony Alpha A230 came in.  This was all just in time (lens arrival and our 2nd lesson) before his big trip to Costa Rica today.  Rain was definitely threatening out ability to have a lesson out on The Pier, but in the end we were pretty lucky having plenty of time to practice using his new lens outside before the rain returned and we took cover in a very deserted Pier food court.  

It was very overcast outside, so I had Henry adjust his exposure compensation to give his shots a little extra light.  A number of pelicans and some trash eating birds were our practice subject matter.  His new Tamron lens had a macro setting which we turned on some old screws in a forgotten section of a lower dock.  Macro photography and external flash are definitely linked, and I showed Henry that how you point the light direction makes for a very different photograph.  We found that bouncing the light off the white wall that was connected to the dock produced a very pleasing light fall off across our exposed screw subject matter.  If there is no white wall next to what you want to shoot?  Well, just have an assistant hold a reflector for you!

The last part of the lesson was a surreal off camera flash lesson inside The Pier itself, mostly in the food court area.  I cannot say I had ever been in a more abandoned feeling public place in Florida before.  Not a single customer in the entire food court.  This was good for us as we were able to take up all the space we wanted to in practicing off camera flash with appropriate white balance in mixed/horrid lighting conditions.  

I am looking forward to seeing Henry's shots of Costa Rica when he returns. 

Sunset as viewed from inside Vinoy Park sculpture during our DSLR Photography LessonHenry is the proud new owner of a Sony A230, my first time to teach a student with a Sony DSLR.  We met at the usual downtown St. Petersburg location, but at the unusual time of 5:45pm, which allowed us to have a bit of a sunset background (above photo) to practice with.  Henry is a former Canon film SLR shooter, but was looking to refresh his memory and get familiar with the larger number of settings a DSLR body offers than a SLR film body.  For sure there is no ISO button on a film camera!

Demonstrating my "quick & dirty" technique for off camera flash - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens @ f/8 ISO 200 1/320th SB-600 Speedlight held off camera to the leftHenry had just bought a Sony brand strobe to go with his A230, which pleasantly surprised me as I love to practice flash photography with students.  I was impressed by the Sony A230's remote triggering abilities, being able to sync off camera at 1/500th of a second.  My Nikon D300 can only do 1/320th of a second using the built in commander mode.  

I am starting to show more and more students how to do my "quick & dirty" off camera flash technique.  Basically, you just set your camera to remotely trigger the flash, hold it up and to the left as you see above, then make the best composition you can with just your right hand on your camera!

If you are wondering why I broke my own rule and have a building coming out of Henry's head, I had to at least partially block the sun in order to be able to get a good exposure.  Plus I just thought it looked kind of cool with the sun over his shoulder.

I look forward to our next lesson once Henry gets a Tamron 70-300mm lens.