DSLR Photography Lesson with Carmen at Taylor Park in Largo

Carmen on her second DSLR Photography lesson making a portrait of her son in Taylor Park in Largo

The wind continues to blow through all DSLR photography lessons in the Tampa Bay area lately.  I met Carmen for her second photography lesson this morning at Taylor Park in Largo.  She brought her son, Aiden, this time to be her practice model for action shots and portraits.  We had Aiden running all over the place through the woods, climbing over everything in two playgrounds and even pausing for a few moments for a portrait or two.  

Today I taught Carmen how to really track and get a focus lock on a moving subject, even in challenging lighting conditions like the heavy overcast skies we had to deal with most of the time.  To help maintain a fast enough shutter speed we used the auto-ISO feature of her Nikon D5000.  Auto-ISO is a great feature that has been added to DSLR cameras in the past few years.  You set the minimum shutter speed you want and the maximum ISO you want, and the camera then actively chooses the ISO to maintain at least that minimum shutter speed.  When the sun keeps jumping in and out from behind clouds, auto-ISO is a great help.

Using flash to freeze action in cloudy overcast conditions

We finished with using flash for both portraits and actions shots.  I told Carmen that I basically never photograph a person without using flash, unless they are playing sports.  Using even just the D5000's on camera flash Carmen was able to make portraits of Aiden with good fill flash in the shadows of the playground.  We set ourselves the challenge of trying to freeze Aiden in the air jumping off a "cliff face," though I must admit I cheated and used my Nikon SB-600 Speedlight off camera for the above frozen action shot.  Shhhh.

I felt by the end of our fun and active 2-hour lesson that Carmen was really starting to put together how aperture, ISO and shutter speed relate to one another and I am sure she will have some great photographs to show me before our next lesson.

A blustery overcast first photography lesson with Gary in downtown Saint Petersburg

Gary with his new Canon 7D and hotshoe mounted 580EX during our Saint Petersburg DSLR photography lesson

Yet another overcast, blustery rain beating DSLR photography lesson in downtown Saint Petersburg!  Gary's first lesson might have been the windiest yet, and the grayest, but as you can see, it was not so gray that both Gary and I did not don our sunglasses still!  Gary told me that he mostly shot in auto-mode with his DSLR, and after Gary sent me his photography gear list by e-mail I was really surprised that he did because he had a huge gear list.  He owns two DSLRs, the new Canon 7D and a backup body Canon 20D plus several lenses including a Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens and the 580EX strobe as well.  It was my first time to see the 7D in person and it felt pretty good in my hands, big enough even for my large hands to fit comfortably around it.  

Though Gary shot in auto-mode, he was familiar with basic photography terminology, and was pretty good with knowing where buttons were and how to change settings on his 7D, so this helped me teach him how to get out of auto-mode and into using custom settings rather quickly.

 

Gary sent me the above photographs he took during our lesson today to illustrate the kind of photographs he was taking before our lesson, and then after.  The "after" image was taken about 40 minutes into the lesson, so you can see Gary learned quickly!  The main thing I tried to teach Gary today per his request on how to add some "wow" to his images, was how to control DoF (depth of focus) to put the focus on the subject and hide the distracting background.

After two wind blown but fun hours, we made it back to our cars just in time before the rain started at 1pm once again!

I look forward to next helping Gary photograph his son's T-ball game. 

DSLR Photography Lesson with Carmen in Saint Petersburg

Above: Carmen focusing on the Pier Below: Carmen in front of the downtown Saint Petersburg skyline

This morning's first DSLR photography lesson with new student Carmen was well timed with a 10am start because the rain was already rolling in by 1pm.  Carmen has the new Nikon D5000 DSLR, my first time to have any hands on experience with it.  For a compact DSLR I was impressed with how it felt in the hand and really impressed by the menu system.  Compact DSLR bodies lack the buttons semi-pro and pro bodies have making you more dependent on going into the menus to change settings so a fast and well laid out menu system is a definite need.

Since getting her Nikon Christmas present from her husband (must be a great guy!) she has been shooting in auto-mode.  We quickly remedied that by having her become an Aperture priority shooter.  There are always quite a few things to go through on a very first lesson, but Carmen being a good student was diligently taking notes and her memory for which settings to use when was quite sharp.  

Downtown Saint Petersburg was covered in overcast skies which gave a chance to practice using higher ISO levels than students and I normally use during Florida's typically sunny days.  We also had good chance to practice action photography when a woman let us photograph her labrador chasing a ball.  

Carmen said she would practice more by herself this week in order to better remember which buttons in her D5000 body do what before our second lesson next weekend.

Linda's first DSLR Lesson with her brand new Nikon D90!

Linda photographing a friendly egret in Vinoy Park during her first DSLR lesson.

I got a phone call last night from Linda asking about my DSLR Photography Lessons.  30 minutes later I got another phone call from her as she was checking out at Best Buy with a brand new Nikon D90 with 18-105mm kit lens, a spare battery, a tripod, a Lowepro backpack camera bag and a 8GB SDHC card and asking if we could have a lesson at 10am this morning!  When we first talked I found out she did not yet own a DSLR, so she asked for my recommendation, which off the top of my head was the Nikon D90.  I mentioned the price of around $900 and heard no gasp.  Next thing I knew I was helping her set some specific settings one should when first setting up a Nikon camera.  

Linda wielding her shiny new Nikon D90 with downtown Saint Petersburg in the background.

We started out lesson with the very basics, which still can be quite overwhelming for anyone.  By the end of the 2-hour lesson Linda was getting a good grasp on aperture and what a large one is and does as well as when to use a low aperture.  As seen in the top photo, Vinoy Park once again provided a photography student with a patient bird as a practice subject matter.  

Linda is an eager photography student and I look forward to our future lessons together.

Second DSLR Photography Lesson with Kandy along Coffee Pot Blvd

We ran into someone Kandy knew during our DSLR photography lesson along Smacks Bayou

Somehow two months passed since Kandy's first DSLR photography lesson.  Her trip to Baha to photograph whales is coming up next weekend, so today we went to the Smacks Bayou area along Coffee Pot Blvd to photograph flying birds over the water in the best simulation of the conditions she will find on her trip.  There were pelicans and gulls and the odd roseate spoonbill, however, even though Kandy has the outstanding Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 USM L series lens, the distance the birds were from us made it a challenge.  They would tease us and fly closer for a bit, but then u-turn back to their beloved tiny rookery island.

This fellow could not be happier spending his Saturday morning in the warm Florida winter sunshineWhile walking down Brightwaters Avenue Kandy surprisingly ran into someone she knew (top most photo).  After this surprise encounter we made our way back toward the North Shore Blvd area and found a group of people playing a kind of controlled football scrimmage.  This gave us another chance to practice fast moving actions shots.  

We also spent some time trying to master changing less common settings on Kandy's Canon 50D.  With a little help from her cheat sheet I think we finally made some progress!  Thank you for your patience Kandy as I get better learning the Canon system myself, being a Nikon shooter.  

I look forward to seeing Kandy's whale photographs when she returns!

Family Sports DSLR Photography Lesson with Rosa

Matthew and Kristina as model's for Rosa's family sports DSLR photography lesson

For Rosa's fourth (1st, 2nd, 3rd) DSLR Photography Lesson, we headed to a waterfront park in downtown Saint Petersburg to practice family sports photography with her children as the athlete-models.  Her son Matthew will begin the baseball season soon, and Kristina plays volleyball.  For this lesson we did not practice the particulars of photographing baseball nor volleyball, but instead just the basics of using continuous focus mode and tracking action.  We covered using multi-point and single point focus settings, as well as a bit of flash action photography.  

Besides being the photography teacher, I was also the quarterback and main frisbee thrower as Rosa focused on trying to catch her children in mid-catch with her Canon T1i.  

I believe for our next lesson we will go to an actual baseball diamond and get into the best angles for photographing a batter and a pitcher.  Rosa continues to be my student most dedicated to improving her photography despite a heavy job workload, not to mention taking care of Kristina and Matthew!  

Rosa, Matthew & Kristina taking a breather after the sports DSLR photography lesson

DSLR Photography Lesson with Rosa and her daughter as a model

For our third DSLR photography lesson, Rosa practices bouncing her speedlight off a side wall.This is already my third lesson with Rosa! (first - second)  She has done some significant shopping since our last lesson about two weeks ago.  She has added to her lens collection with the purchase of a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens, and a larger camera bag to store all three of her lenses in.  She's added a tripod, and most excitingly, a 430 EX II speedlight!  Rosa also brought her daughter, Kristina, with her to be a practice model for portraits.  I cannot say enough how great Christina was, and patient too, with our 2-hours of posing her all over the Plant Museum building on the University of Tampa Campus.  

We started with practicing portraits out on the front porch of the Plant Museum building just like I would my own portrait clients.  Here I showed Rosa the best places for Christina to stand in order to make best use of natural light in addition to the light from her speedlight.  

A portrait of Christina I made while Rosa was getting setup.

As in previous lessons, Rosa was a fast learner and soon was totally getting into portrait making mode, even helping out Kristina with scarf placement and other set design stuff.  We made good use of all the new gear she bought, even the tripod as she put her Canon T1i with her new 50mm f/1.8 lens onto the tripod for natural light portrait practice.

I'm sure once her family sees the portraits she made of Kristina, they are going to be hounding her even more to photograph them too!

Thanks again to Kristina for being such a trooper of a model and to Rosa for another great, and different, DSLR photography lesson.

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