Photography Lessons

DSLR Photography Lesson with Deb & her new 430EX II Speedlite

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Deb wielding her substantial Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens - photo: Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 @ f/11 ISO 200 1/320th Strobist: Nikon SB-600 Speedlight held off camera triggered by commander mode

Once again my week started off with a fun DSLR Photography Lesson with Deb (lesson #1) in downtown St. Petersburg.  In the past week she got some new photography gear in the form of a Canon 430EX II Speedlite, which I suggested to her during our first lesson as the best piece of gear to get next, as speedlights are extremely useful.  She even got a bounce cap too, also very useful.  

We started out shooting in the shade of one of the downtown condo towers to escape the heat and also because shade is better for making portraits.  The first flash shots we took were practicing bouncing the flash off of available walls.  Ideally there would be a nice, smooth white wall everywhere you happened to decide to make a portrait, however, one often has to make due with much less.  Still, in a few quick test shots I was able to demonstrate to Deb that even bouncing the light from her 430EX II off a rough, dark creme wall was better than pointing the light straight at me.  She was able to do this because the 430EX II has a swivel head allowing her to point the light of the flash in a different direction than her lens.  On camera flash does not allow one to do this.  Hence, an external flash, even used on camera, has a great advantage over the built-in pop-up flash.

Sometimes there are not any walls around so we even practiced for that before finishing with making a portrait in direct sunlight, perhaps the least ideal situation.  However, using my tried and true settings (see photo description) serviceable broad daylight portraits are possible, when necessary.

Next lesson we will be getting the flash off of Deb's 7D and out on its own for off camera flash to produce even better portrait results.  Deb is learning fast!

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Cindy & her Canon T1i

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    Cindy holding her Canon T1i properly with the left palm under the lens

    Cindy recently joined the DSLR world and having already booked a trip to Alaska for 2011 wants to get a head start on being able to make some great shots of the vistas and wildlife in the land of the midnight sun.  So she brought her Canon T1i to downtown St. Petersburg for our first DSLR Photography Lesson to learn how to make shots with bokeh on purpose, how to photograph moving objects and basically learn which settings need to be changed when switching to a different shooting style or subject matter.  

    Cindy photographs a great egret during our DSLR photography lesson in Vinoy ParkI feel that the Canon T1i makes changing settings easier than on the Canon 7D (twice the price) because it has single, dedicated buttons for ISO, WB and focus mode (though sporadically laid out).  As I suggest to all students, I told Cindy to become obsessed with checking settings as much as possible.  Sure enough, some how one time her white balance got changed back to AWB rather than daylight.  

    Cindy says she lives near the area of St. Petersburg called the "jungle" so I look forward to seeing her shots from there and also to our next lesson. 

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Deb & her Canon 7D

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    Deb learned which lenses to use on her Canon 7D depending on the subject she is photographingDeb mentioned before our DSLR Photography Lesson in downtown St. Petersburg that she had a 70-200mm lens, she did not mention though it was the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L lens!  She also mentioned that she did not really use it that much, not realizing the power of that lens.  I immediately began to sing its praises and how it was the best piece of photography kit in her bag.  

    red shouldered hawk with preyFirst though I showed her how to navigate all the controls on her Canon 7D, which Canon does not necessarily make that easy to do since it pairs often changed settings to a single button.  Soon though I had Deb constantly checking and confirming her aperture, ISO, WB and focal mode/points (the order I set & check things in) as we walked around making different kinds of shots (shallow DoF, moving subject, etc).  We even had the chance to photograph a red-shouldered hawk eating prey in a tree.  Deb lives on 3-acres of land and said many birds can be found on her property so I hope she takes out her 70-200mm and 7D each day to practice shooting and start documenting all the wildlife she gets to call neighbors.

    Deb works for Ambassador Limo whose clientele overlaps with mine so we talked some about combining our professional services to provide an even stronger product for clients.  I look forward to this very much and also to our next DSLR photography lesson once her external flash arrives! 

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    • Florida DSLR Photography Lesson with Pete & his Nikon D5000

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    Pete likes to use his Nikkor 70-30mm VR lens with his Nikon D5000 the most because he likes to see detials

    During our DSLR Photography Lesson, new student Pete asked the most questions of any student before.  However, this only made my job easier as I like to be asked questions and this process also tells me exactly what the student needs to know.  It was a very rare rain-free evening in St. Petersburg, virtually windless, and thus pretty steamy, but we had many shaded Q&A sessions over the two hours.  Pete was very anxious to learn how to use his new Nikon D5000 better.  He had photography experience, but modern DSLRs have quite a few more controls on them than cameras of yesteryear.  The first thing we did was get him off of P mode and onto aperture priority mode.  Then I taught him about aperture, and about how he really only needs to worry about using f/5.6, f/8 and f/11 for the type of photography he likes to do.  

    Two leading lines go right to the subject in this quick portrait of PeteBasically I showed Pete a good default settings base that will suit him well for shooting still objects in many situations: 

    • f/11
    • ISO 200 (lowest on Nikons)
    • aperture priority mode
    • white balance = sunny
    • focus mode = AF-S (one shot for Canon)
    • one (centered) focus point
    • use a tripod as much as possible 

    For sunny outdoor Florida weather, morning to evening, those settings will work well for most still subject matter.  

    Pete is traveling to beautiful Martha's Vineyard soon so I look forward to seeing his shots from there! 

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    • On camera external flash DSLR Photography Lesson with Mohammad

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    Nikon D300 with Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens @ f/6.3 ISO 200 1/60th manual exposure Since our first DSLR photography lesson Mohammad bought an external flash (Canon 430EX II speedlite) to pair with his Canon T2i, which is something I highly recommend to all my students as the best next piece of photography gear to buy, after the initial DSLR and lens purchase.  The popup flash on DSLR bodies (or any camera) produces very poor results and has a very limited reach.  If you like to photograph people, then an external flash (strobe) is basically a must.  

    We once again met in downtown St. Petersburg finding various overhangs and walls to practice bouncing the strobe off of.  Even with an external flash, you do not want to just blast the light directly onto the subject, which will produce blown out skin tones and harsh shadows.  So what you can do is have the light from the strobe bounce off something so that it hits your subject indirectly.  This indirect light is scattered and soft.  That kind of light is good for producing professional looking portraits.

    While I was being the model for Mohammad's practice shots, he remembered to use the rule of thirds while photographing me.  So since the lens was not pointed directly at me, the head of the flash would need to be redirected more toward me (the subject) or a bouncable wall.  External strobes like the 430EX II have a multidirectional head.  So the lens can be pointed one way, and the strobe another.  This is another advantage an external strobe has over the built in pop-up flash.  

    New in the lesson was also shooting mostly in manual mode.  Mohammad quickly realized that being able to get away with f/8 and f/11 for almost all shots taken in direct sunlight is not the case when using external flash as we often had to very finely tune our apertures and shutter speeds to produce the best exposures.  As you can see, I used f/6.3 for the above shot.  

    Now, as better an external flash mounted on a hotshoe is over the built in pop-up flash, getting that external flash off the camera is that much better than having it on the hotshoe.  I look forward to a future lesson with Mohammad where we practice off camera flash.  I recommend reading the STROBIST blog if you want to get a daily dose of lighting information. 

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    • Digital Photograph Editing Lesson with Danielle

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    Danielle's original jpg digital photo on the left, our edited version on the right using Photoshop Elements 8/CS5

    Some of my DSLR photography students have gotten to a point where their shooting is definitely improving, and it is time to now work on how to post process, or edit digital photographs.  Danielle is one such student.  I even wrote recently myself that one should develop shooting and editing skills simultaneously.  

    Danielle brought her laptop to the lesson loaded with Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.  I worked on my own laptop using Adobe Photoshop CS5 showing her step-by-step how I go about editing a portrait.  I typically use a workflow in this order: 

    1. crop the image
    2. correct the exposure
    3. color correct the image
    4. edit the subject's eyes
    5. remove blemishes
    6. clone out unwanted elements in the image
    7. sharpen
    8. save! 

    As you can see above, Danielle captured a very nice expression on the baby's face.  Since the right side of the baby's head was already over the edge of the frame, I decided to crop down the top as well.  The baby had a small cut on the inside corner of her left eye, we used the healing brush mostly to make that disappear.  

    The baby also had dark shadows under her eyes.  We chose a soft clone stamp brush, set it to lighten, set it to 40%, sampled an area just under the dark spot, then made a gentle brush stroke horizontally over the dark spot.  Then we used the dodge tool set to highlights and 30% and clicked once or twice on each white area of the eye to quickly and super easily brighten the eyes without making it look too fake.

    The last thing we did was remove some drool on her lips.  

    Danielle did a good job in camera of getting the image.  We then used editing to make the photograph more polished and professional looking.  With practice those editing steps only take about 10 minutes to do, or less.  Danielle learned and practiced those steps side-by-side with me and more as well in just a 2-hour lesson.  I am looking forward to seeing how she does on her own, and if she discovered any new editing tricks herself!

    Thank you Danielle for letting me publish your photograph. 

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    • 50mm DSLR Photography Lesson on the streets

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    Shooting with a 50mm prime lens is a freeing photography experienceMy DSLR Photography Lessons with Chris are a little different than others.  I find his photography questions push me and to answer them I have to reveal my photography secrets.  Though they are not secrets at all.  They are out there on every street in the world.  It's just up to one to find them, to feel them, to use them.  

    I learned DSLR photography, or rather what I know of it, out on the streets of Tokyo.  I took thousands of shots a month.

    The second lens I ever bought was a Nikkor AF 50mm f/1.8D.  For at least ten days I was studying about it, building it up in my mind.  By the time I finally bought it was beyond stoked.  All this for a piece of kit that cost only around $100!  However, like most photography gear, there is no magic wand built into it.  There was a learning curve necessary.  However, once I taught myself to be competent with it, again by taking thousands of shots, I loved the lens and used it often, out on the streets.

    So during our third lesson (1st, 2nd) this morning, when Chris asked me, "how do you know what to photograph?" (paraphrasing), a question I have been asked before by students, I could not answer at first because I do not know what to photograph by words, I photograph by feel.  My mind is always framing the world in terms of shots.  I am never not looking at things like a shot, unless I consciously turn that thinking offline.  

    I ended up telling Chris to just shoot what looks interesting to you, what makes you feel good to shoot, and that will show itself in your shots.  I told him I shoot first and foremost for myself, to make photographs that I, myself, like.  If others like them, great.  If not, as long as I made a shot I liked, that is enough for me.  

    I very rarely see photos just standing, they are often at off angles.I took Chris into my favorite alleys in downtown St. Petersburg.  He had an interest in photograph shadows.  We found this fire escape pattern in foul odored section of a back alley near the postoffice, a place I purposefully shot in before.  I encouraged him to get low, to go at off angles, and to shoot at f/2 with his own 50mm f/1.8D lens.  Play with the DoF.  Find the angle that makes the shot a photograph of interest to your own eye.  

    I really enjoyed this philosophy of photography lesson and to be reminded of how much I like to shoot with my 50mm prime lens, a lens I almost never use in my paid work. 

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