Canon 70-300mm EF f/4-5.6 IS lens

Canon T3i 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in downtown St. Petersburg Florida with Jeannie

Jeannie with her Canon T3i practicing photographing moving subjects in downtown St. Petersburg FloridaOn a slightly cool Saturday morning I met Jeannie for our first of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons in downtown St. Petersburg getting her started with her new Canon T3i.  Like many of my hundreds of photography students, Jeannie just got her DSLR after only shooting with small, point and shoot cameras in the past.  She did some reading in a photography book before we met though, and following a suggestion I gave her on what to do before the first lesson, she familiarized herself with how to change aperture, shutter speed, ISO, WB and focus mode on her Canon T3i.  Every first lesson I teach, pretty much for a student of any level of experience, starts with me showing that person how to change key settings on their DSLR camera body.  After all, even if you have full knowledge of the five key things to making a well exposed and sharp photograph in any situation, if you do not know how to change those settings on your camera, it does no good.

The Canon T3i has enough dedicated buttons that the menu is not needed to change any of the five key settings, which is an advantage when it comes to being able to quickly change one, two or all five of those settings as a shooting opportunity arises.  We covered a lot of things in the first lesson, concluding with some moving subject practice.  Jeannie put on her Canon 70-300mm lens and with Saturday morning being very busy in downtown St. Pete, there were plenty of cyclists, etc to practice the moving subject shooting technique on.

Jeannie has already written to me saying she has been out practicing since our first lesson, which is very good, and will help her even more when we meet for our second of four lessons.

DSLR Photography Lesson with Daniel & his Canon 60D

Daniel practices an indoor shot with his Canon 60D & 70-300mm lens inside a St. Petersburg Panera Bread due to rainIt was a most unusual first DSLR Photography Lesson with Daniel last Friday evening.  In fact it was the first time I had an entirely indoors, sit-down photo lesson that was not focused on editing digital photos.  This was due to Daniel being short on time before he left for a south Florida vacation and Friday's all-day rain not allowing for the usual downtown St. Petersburg walkabout.  However, if anyone I had previously taught was more well suited for this type of lesson, then I cannot think of who.  

The sit-down lesson style allowed Daniel to ask many technical questions about what settings for what situations.  We were able to delve into photography theory quite a bit.  There was a lot of info and numbers spoken of, but Daniel says he has an outstanding memory (and I believe him) so I really think he will be able to put all of the above to practical use in the field.  

Despite being within the confines of a Panera Bread, we still had the opportunity for shooting practice (see above photo).

Canon 70-300mm EF f/4-5.6 IS lens -- if you do not want to spend $2,000 then this is the Canon telephoto lens to getI taught Daniel how to use his Canon 70-30mm EF f/4-5.6 IS lens in low light, how to use it to produce a shot with bokeh, how to best it and what minimum shutter speeds he could expect to use and still get a sharp shot.  After that we popped up the flash on his Canon 60D to see how that affected the same shots we had previously took.  

Once Daniel returns from vacation I look forward to our first in the field lesson and seeing how he applies all that tech and theory knowledge in practical shooting.

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