Davina and her brand new Pentax K-R with beautiful St. Petersburg Florida at twilight in the background
Davina received a great present from her husband for their anniversary, a DSLR camera! It was my first time to see the new Pentax K-R and was fairly impressed with the number of buttons on the body, including dedicated WB and ISO controls. I had no trouble finding and changing any of the four basic settings (aperture, ISO, WB, focus) I start out teaching in a first DSLR photography lesson. I cannot say this for all the DSLRs I have seen in the many lessons I have taught.
We had great weather for our Friday evening lesson and made our way toward the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront to start to learn how a photographer controls the background of his/her images. There are two things that can really make a photograph stand out from others of similar subject matter: 1.) background 2.) light We focused on background first by photographing the top of a fence post (imagining it was a cool 1950s Chevy hood emblem) the best way, which was to blur the background by using a large aperture and a longer focal length as well as filling the frame with the subject matter. Basically, we did not want the background to be a distraction, so I showed Davina how to set her Pentax to isolate the subject, and therefore leave no doubt to what it was she made a photo of.
In between locations I enjoyed talking to Davina about the benefits of living in Florida and what it is really like in Utah (not just red rock desert!). I look forward to our next lesson and seeing more of what the Pentax K-R can do.