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.
