Pat & Jon showing good form with their Nikon DSLRs during our photography lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaIt is very rare for me to teach anything but a 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson but in seven day's time when I met Pat and Jon it was my third that week! Pat had experience with film SLRs, but found their Nikon D3100 DSLR to be a more complex camera body than she was used to. Jon had been doing a lot of reading up on digital photography, so with their combined photography knowledge, they already had a good base to start from. During our photography lesson I taught them my very specific and exact process for making a well exposed and sharp image in any shooting conditions. Knowing what aperture is, and shutter speed, etc, is one thing, applying that knowledge is another and is the biggest reason why my on location, in the field shooting, photography lessons help get people actually shooting in manual mode as quickly as possible, and in a way they can repeat even after the lesson.
Pat & Jon have a business related to air shows, so being able to get shots of plans flying by is something they wanted to learn about. Really for photographing any moving subject the technique is the same, it's just the size and speed of the subject may make things a little more tricky. It's all a matter of using the minimum shutter speed necessary (1/500th) and the correct focus mode (AF-C; Ai-servo). After that your technique as a photographer and skill to track the subject takes over.
I look forward to seeing their future plane and jet photos using the skills we practiced during our photography lesson on a pleasant Saturday morning in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida.
