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.