Craig was very eager and happy to learn what his Nikon D60 is capable of beyond auto mode
It was a beautiful mid-day in downtown St. Petersburg when I met Craig for ours first DSLR Photography Lesson together. Craig has owned a Nikon D60 for awhile now, but like so many of my past students was mainly using auto-mode. It gives me great pleasure to declare to students that they will never (at least should never) use auto-mode again after even just our first lesson. I have learned from student feedback that there is a certain fear hurdle to overcome about learning to become more serious about photography. That it seems like every shot requires adjusting a laundry list of settings. However, that is totally not true. In reality, given the same shooting conditions, there are relatively few settings that need to be changed at all from shot to shot.
Craig and I had a long Q&A session at the beginning going over settings, various scenarios, gear recommendations and some how-to's. Once we got up and started shooting, Craig was won over with the bokeh he could produce in his shots using his Nikon D60 at f/5.6 and Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens at its full 200mm focal length. This was not surprising, bokeh is always a crowd pleaser!
A great egret was a willing model for us once we walked over to Vinoy Park allowing Craig to practice composing for a clean background, best exposure and fill-the-frame details. The 2-hour lesson time went by quickly and I am sure I will be seeing Craig again soon.