Photography Lessons

DSLR Photography Lesson with Alice & her Canon 60D

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St. Petersburg's own pirate ship sailed past Alice (with Canon 60D) and I during her DSLR photography lessonMaybe one day I will not be so surprised that one can meet people who surprisingly have many of the same rare-ish things you do in common.  For example, new DSLR Photography Lesson student, Alice, who recently got a Canon 60D, has a master's degree in ESL (English as a second language), but only briefly ever taught ESL.  I taught ESL for nine years (without a master's in it).  She also knows the same person in a local tutoring company that I do.  So while I helped Alice get acquainted with how to change the settings on her Canon 60D we discovered all these unexpected things in common.

We were both expecting a cold morning, but I left my car without need for my jacket and unlike the blustery, semi-freezing January morning lessons last year, this was nearly as pleasant of weather as one can expect for winter in Florida.  The pirate ship even returned from its time abroad to St. Petersburg harbor and conveniently floated by just as we were entering Vinoy Park.

Alice and her Canon 60D showing how to properly hold one's DSLR with left palm under the lensAlice is also interested in learning how to use the video function of her Canon 60D which may be a subject we tackle in a future lesson.  Until then she has her poodle at home to practice on all the things we learned about this fine Florida winter day.  It was fun to be able to get Alice started on her DSLR photography path and to learn of her ESL past. 

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Malissa and her Canon 7D

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    Malissa with her new Canon 7D and 28-135mm lens in Vinoy Park

    On a very sunny and crisp St. Petersburg mid-holiday week morning, I met Malissa (yes, spelled with an "a") and her new Canon 7D (present from her husband) for a from the very beginning DSLR Photography Lesson.  Malissa had a point and shoot digital camera previous to her 7D, so after realizing it was quite a jump between cameras, her husband again found my lessons and there we were.  

    Malissa was not even familiar with basic photography terms like aperture, ISO, etc, but that was ok because it is much quicker to learn what these things mean from me, and see how they work in the field, than by only reading manuals and how-to books on those topics.  I told Malissa that even though her 7D was covered in buttons, there are basically only four settings that need to be regularly changed, those being, along with the two mentioned above, white balance and focus mode as well.  

    Malissa has the Canon 70-300mm lens, which sounds like a long lens, but as I had her try to photograph a pelican in the water, she pointed out herself that the pelican still looked small in frame, despite our relatively close distance to her.  Then I had to break the bad news to her that to get any longer lens would cost several thousands of dollars for a 500mm or 600mm lens!  Hmm, at the time I did not think to mention teleconverters, but my limited experience with them has not impressed me.  

    I look forward to seeing what Malissa can now do with her Canon 7D and a lot more DSLR photography knowledge. 

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Kevin & his Canon 60D

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    Kevin with his new Canon 60D in Vinoy Park at the end of our DSLR photography lessonAfter a one-day rain delay, I met Kevin with his new Canon 60D in downtown St. Petersburg for our first DSLR Photography Lesson, although again this morning there was some heavy mist in the air.  The weather could not stop us from having a great, detailed lesson though.  Kevin claimed to be only a beginner, but due to his initial in-depth reading about his 60D and digital photography in general, he was able to quickly learn how to change the basic settings on his camera, and more importantly knew enough to know which questions he needed to ask so that he could start making the kinds of photographs he wanted to.

    I often here people say when they see a nice photograph, "that person must have a really nice camera," which always drives me crazy as the camera cannot take photographs on its own!  As any first time DSLR owner will know, the illusion that just having an expensive camera means great photographs will start filling your flickr photostream, gets shattered pretty quickly.  This was true for myself.  My first day out with my first DSLR I could not even get a pigeon on the ground to come out in focus.  Thousands of shots and a few weeks later, I had taught myself how to get those pigeon shots in focus by learning what I had been doing wrong.  By taking practical photography lessons, especially 1-on-1 lessons, you can save yourself a lot of time in that initial major trial and error period.

    Kevin is eager to learn even more than what we covered in our first two-hour lesson, so I look forward to having lessons in the near future focusing on just using his 50mm prime lens, and also on how to make great night shots using a tripod.  Kevin also spent time in Korea and Japan, so in addition to photography we were able to swap Asia experiences stories.  It's always an amazing thing that in a small Florida town you can meet someone who spent time in the same far-off cities on the other side of the world you did.   

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    • DSLR Photography Night Lesson with Patti & her tripod

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    Long exposure portrait - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm tripod mounted @ f/4 ISO 400 1.6 sec

    For Patti's second DSLR Photography Lesson in downtown St. Petersburg she wanted to learn how to use her tripod for making great dusk, twilight and night shots.  It turns out she has the same Pro Line tripod as I do!  The weather in St. Petersburg went overnight from summer-like to arctic.  As we made our way out to The Pier, I was glad I was wearing my Mountain Hard Wear softshell rendering the blustery wind harmless.

    We stopped at the approach to The Pier for a tip on using leading lines to add interest to a shot's composition.  I also stressed one of my axiom's of photography -- avoid shooting at eye level whenever possible.  I had Patti fully shorten her tripod's legs for a nice long angle shot of The Pier, that she remarked after she took it was different than any other shot of The Pier she had taken before.  That is exactly the kind of results I strive for in my own photography and something I try to instill in anyone I teach photography to from the beginning -- if I can see it by standing at eye level, why in the world would I want to look at a photograph of the exact same thing?  I wouldn't.  So show me something I cannot see by standing at eye level.  I am glad to pass on this practice to Patti as she photographed The Pier during our lesson.

    Of course the best thing about photography and The Pier, is shooting the downtown St. Petersburg skyline from the top of The Pier itself.  This is challenging however as there is a very tall railing that needs to be shot over.  Our tripods needed significant center column extension to be able to do so, a negative because that reduced stability.  Add in a strong wind, and conditions were far from ideal.  This just made us have to be extra careful and thoughtful in the mechanics of tripod shooting.  Patti has a handy wireless remote she used to trigger her Nikon D3000 in order to eliminate camera shake even more.  

    Taken in a moving elevator! Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm tripod mounted @ f/8 ISO 400 2 secBefore we entered the elevator to get back to the ground level I suggested we set up our DSLRs for long exposure shots while riding the elevator down.  Setting up our cameras before allowed us to be ready once we got into the elevator and not hold it up or have to worry about it moving before we were ready.  You can see Patti's reflection to the mid-left and mine to center-right.  To the far left is some guy who had a DSLR who I heard say, "wish I had brought my tripod."

    Patti is off to Las Vegas for a family Christmas vacation.  She now has the skills to get some great night shots of that far brighter city.  I of course encouraged her to wake up before sunrise and head out to the desert for some dawn landscapes!  I look forward to seeing if she does. 

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Tanya & her Canon XSi

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    Tanya and her Canon XSi not afraid of shooting from the street during our DSLR photography lesson in downtown St. Petersburg

    Tanya was one of the most experienced people to take one of my DSLR photography lessons.  Her father was a real photography starting back in the 1950s with his own studio.  He has passed on a lot of his photography gear to Tanya, but we did not use any of that during our lesson mostly focusing on getting the best out of her Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens on her Canon XSi DSLR.  She had been a strict manual focuser and manual exposure user, which is good, but it can be especially tricky manually focusing a 50mm lens.  She was not getting the results she wanted, so I showed her the wonders of aperture priority mode and auto-focus.  We were soon able to get her producing sharp shots with her 50mm lens.

    After that we tried out some simple bounce flash portraits using her Nikon (!) brand Nissin strobe.  I realized TTL mode would not work on her Canon DSLR, so we went right into manual mode and after a few test shots were able to produce some good, shadowless portraits right on the street.  I am never that good of a model, and this time in particular I was making some very strange faces!  

    We finished the 2-hour lesson with some long exposure tripod shots.  I let Tanya borrow my tripod to use along with her cable release.  She likes to photograph sailboats on water, and the small harbor in front of The Pier is home to a number of sailboats providing the ideal practice ground.  I showed her how to focus while using a tripod mounted DSLR as we experimented with 10, 20 and finally 30 second exposures.  

    We covered a lot of different photography topics during our action packed lesson.  In addition, I enjoyed listening to Tanya's thoughts on photography as art and of her dad's photography business. 

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Amy & Annette

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    On the left Amy with her Nikon D3100 & Annette on the right with her Olympus E-510Very rarely do I teach anything other than 1-on-1 private DSLR Photography Lessons, but Amy asked if she could take a lesson with a friend who was also at a similar photography level so I said ok let's give it a try.  It worked out pretty well I think.  It was a beautiful sunny late morning in downtown St. Petersburg and the waterfront was pretty busy, but we mostly stuck to photographing the usual things I have first time students shoot, like the big tree next to the art museum, an imaginary car hood emblem, before moving on to photographing myself as a moving object and then finally some landscape and portrait practice out in Vinoy Park.  

    Annette arrived a little be later in the lesson so I had Amy setup Annette with the settings we were about to begin shooting with.  Amy showed a very good memory in remembering them all clearly (f/5.6 ISO 100 WB SUNNY AF-S).  Annette could find her way around her Olympus E-510 pretty well so things moved quickly as we switched between different practice subjects.  

    It was also interesting to hear about Annette's motorcycle racing hobby!  I look forward to seeing her new and improved shots of her husband zooming by at 150mph and to my next lessons with Amy & Annette (or perhaps individually). 

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    • DSLR Photography Lesson with Patti & her Nikon D3000

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    Patti showing good DSLR camera holding technique of her Nikon D3000, though she said it was uncomfortable . . .

    I started off this week with a morning lesson with new DSLR Photography student Patti in downtown St. Petersburg.  The weather was about as ideal as you can get in Florida, just warm enough, minimal humidity, and a decent breeze all around.  As you can see in the portrait above, there was not a cloud in the sky either.  

    Patti had taken a photography 101 class recently, so she knew her photography vocabulary pretty well and also her way around her Nikon D3000.  So during our first lesson I showed her how to put all those definitions and menu knowledge to practical use in a variety of common shooting situations.  We practiced good camera techniques as well, including just how to best hold a DSLR (left palm under the lens barrel, elbows firmly against one's sides) and how to set the focus and recompose using the rule of thirds.  

    I also showed Patti how to really pay attention to stray objects getting into the frame because not all DSLRs have 100% viewfinders, which means just because you do not see any tree branch poking into the right of the frame in the viewfinder, does not mean the camera does not see it.  Check your review screen on the back of the DSLR carefully to see if any intruders made their way in.

    Not only was it a photography lesson, but it was also a bit of a sightseeing lesson as Patti is still somewhat new to Florida and lives in Tampa.  I hope she returns to visit beautiful downtown St. Petersburg soon, perhaps for our next lesson? 

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