During our 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson Chris had a chance to photograph these ducklings!On a not too hot St. Petersburg morning I met new DSLR Photography Lesson student Chris for our first of four 1-on-1 photography lessons. She had taken a photography class about a year ago, but soon after reverted to using auto-mode again so in our lessons I will help her get off of that once and for all and learn to love manual mode!
She has a Nikon D90 and a pair of lenses to go along with her already acquired photography knowledge. We started with a tour of her DSLR and how to change the four (or five if in manual mode) necessary settings for any given shot. The D90 has two dials and a top LCD making it pretty quick to be able to do a wholesale set of changes. For anyone wanting to be serious about shooting in dynamic situations, I highly recommend a DSLR with that feature set, otherwise it will take much longer to change settings than you will most likely have.
Toward the end of our 2-hour lesson it was a nice surprise to come across a mama duck and her three ducklings. They provided a very fun subject matter to practice photographing moving subjects. The key of course is setting the focus mode to AF-C (Ai Servo) and then using good tracking technique to maintain a focus lock on the moving subjects by always keeping the shutter pressed halfway down.
For our second lesson will we head out to The Pier to photograph pelicans and other wonders.
