Margaret using her Nikon D3100 during our 1-on-1 DSLR photography lesson in downtown St. Petersburg FloridaYesterday evening I met Margaret in downtown St. Petersburg for our first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson. There were dark clouds all around, but all they provided was a nice somewhat less hot cover for our lesson time and no rain at all. The best of both worlds! Margaret was not a first time DSLR owner as a majority of my photography students are. She owned a Nikon D40 before recently buying a Nikon D3100, but all that time she had just been using auto-mode. Now with the new DSLR, she finally was ready to learn to take control of her camera.
As I showed Margaret around her Nikon D3100 I explained that it only takes at most the setting of five things on the camera to make a well exposed and sharp image in any given shooting situation. Beyond that we also talked about the benefits of shooting in RAW and how an external flash would help her shoot indoors better.
After that intro we walked around the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront and were treated to a mothership looking cloud formation for a little landscape photography practice. I also instructed Margaret on how to control the background (in focus or out of focus) using aperture and focal length. I look forward to seeing her photographs shot in manual exposure mode from now on!
