Photography Lessons

Nikon D90 & D3100 DSLR Photography Lesson with Bill and Ria in downtown St. Petersburg Florida

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Ria & Bill show good form as they prepare to photograph me as I walk down a sidewalk during our Nikon photography lesson.Last Saturday I ended my day with a DSLR Photography Lesson with husband and wife Bill & Ria and this Saturday I began my day with our second lesson together, this time in the usual downtown St. Petersburg spot.  They both did some studying and practice since our last lesson which I highly recommend so that at the start of the next lesson they will have questions to ask and photographs to show me.  

For our second lesson we continued with the 4-steps to setting up a well exposed and in focus shot.  We started with making sure we were aware of the position of the sun relevant to our subject, which whenever possible we want our backs to the sun and our shadows pointed at the subject.  This is of course useful when photographing still and moving subjects.  The latter we practiced much more this time on passing cyclists and also yours truly as you can see Ria & Bill preparing to do in the photo above.  They are both using my suggested hand holding technique for portrait orientation, with the DSLR grip up in the right hand which allows the left elbow to become a point of stability against your body.  They lined up side-by-side like that on their own, it is a candid image!

I look forward to seeing what shots they make with a second round of photography knowledge.

Pentax K-5 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Florida with Heather

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Heather with her new Pentax K-5 during our first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. PetersburgHeather contacted me about my 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons for help with her new Pentax K-5 DSLR.  Like many of my past students, she had upgraded from a point and shoot camera and tried studying using books and videos, but there is nothing like getting direct, real time feedback for learning DSLR photography.  We met in the usual downtown St. Petersburg spot and had all the sun we wanted from mother nature.  Soon, I will have to only have lessons from 9am as the midday sun will just be too strong.

Heather had done some research into photography terms and what not, which was helpful when I explained my 4-step process for setting up a well exposed and in focus shot.  Since she had just a 18-55mm variable aperture lens, I advised her that for now all she needs to worry about are apertures f/5.6 f/8 and f/11 and when shooting in broad daylight like we were mostly, for still subjects, stick to f/11.

Actually Heather is having doubts about whether to keep her Pentax K-5 or switch to a Nikon D7000.  I like some of the ergonomics of Pentax bodies, but after a few minutes of searching both for a button and in the menus I could not find a way to change the drive mode, which I had never failed to do before with any of the dozens of DSLRs I have hands on during hundreds of lessons.  

Today was just our first of four lessons, as Heather chose the discounted 4-pack of lessons so I will be seeing her again soon.  I look forward to seeing the photographs she takes of her young children between now and then.

Sony A55 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Florida with Jon

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Jon with his new Sony A55 during our 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in Vinoy Park at sunsetWith sunset coming well after 7:30pm nowadays the return of springtime weekday evening lessons starts with Jon and his new Sony A55.  It was my first time to get hands on with this particular DSLR.  It was smaller physically than I expected and has a useful flip down LCD viewfinder.  However, the motion sensor that turns off the back LCD as you put your eye into the optical viewfinder seems like a very useful feature at first, but I found that when reviewing a photo the screen it can too easily get motion detected off.  

Jon had been using point and shoot digital cameras for awhile, and long ago even took a criminology based photography class, so he had some familiarity with photography terms like aperture, ISO, etc.  We started out shooting in aperture priority mode, but thanks to the light transition during our golden hour lesson I was able to show Jon how switching to manual mode really allows the photography to take control over the final image by including as much or as little of the vividness of the sunset sky.  

For the first time in a long time during a lesson there was time to venture out to Vinoy Park for the final part of the 2-hours.  This allowed for a little sunset portrait practice.  

Beyond photography Jon has also traveled in Asia so it was nice to talk about our experiences traveling there in between shooting locations.  I look forward to seeing where Jon's photography goes from here.

Nikon D90 & D3100 DSLR Photography Lesson with Bill and Ria in St. Petersburg Florida

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Ria & Bill with their Nikons during our first DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaOnce again due to the Honda Grand Prix going on in downtown St. Petersburg, I used the small park at the end of Coffee Part Bayou as the location for a DSLR Photography Lesson with husband and wife Bill & Ria and their pair of Nikons.  It was my first time to see a vivid red Nikon D3100 body!  It looked pretty cool.  That was the DSLR Ria used during the lesson and Bill wielded the Nikon D90.  Though I market my photography lessons as 1-on-1, they are available to pairs as well.  It is actually nice teaching two people because that means I do not have to be the model for practice shots!

Being very familiar with Nikon menu settings it was no problem to get both their D90 and D3100 setup and ready to start making shots in the manner I do with my own Nikon D300.  During the lesson we practiced how to frame a portrait shot to make best use of space and put the person in a flattering composition (i.e. not having the horizon bisecting their head).  Many people's instinct is to center the subject, but putting the subject just off center even, like in the photo above, adds more interest and better use of negative space.  

It was a real fun time introducing Bill and Ria to the manual DSLR world, where before they were just using the D90 in auto-mode.  We already have our next lesson scheduled!

Canon T2i 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Florida with Miles

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Miles takes a swing with his Canon T2i during our DSLR Photography Lesson in St. PetersburgI was contacted by Miles' girlfriend about getting him a 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson as a present for his birthday.  I of course said that sounds like a great idea and I sent her the gift certificate to be printed out and wrapped up.  I did not meet Miles in the usual downtown St. Petersburg spot due to the grand prix going on there, so we met at a new location for me, a small park at the end of Coffee Pot Blvd known to be a manatee gathering spot, and sure enough we saw several manatees along the water.

Miles had a lot of good questions to ask me to start out the lesson, many of which centering on which lens to get next, and along with teaching my 4-step process for making any shot well exposed and in focus, the small park provided a comfortable setting for that discussion and then the view of Coffee Pot Bayou from the park provided a good subject to practice making shots of.  

I had a good time during my lesson with Miles and I look forward to seeing what lens he gets next!

Aperture 3 & Photoshop CS5 Digital Photography Editing lesson with Kamila

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Editing one of Kamila's baby portraits using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5 - this photo made by iPhone 4It has been almost a year now since I met Kamila for our first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in downtown St. Petersburg.  It has been good to see her increase her photography shooting skills.  As such, our last two lessons have focused on editing digital photos.  Since that last editing lesson she has also greatly upgraded her workstation with a 27" iMac!  As I recommended she got Aperture 3 to use as her photo management system and initial editing app.  We began the lesson with getting her RAW workflow as streamlined as mine is on Aperture 3, which mainly involved getting the import presets & meta data all set up.  

From there I showed her my usual first editing steps in Aperture 3:  straightening, cropping, and exposure tweaks, all only if necessary.  We set up Photoshop CS5 to be the external editor for photos in the Aperture 3 library allowing us to actually work in Photoshop, but still all saves change the file within Aperture 3.

I am a big proponent of keyboard shortcuts, and before the lesson I sent Kamila my PDF of Aperture 3 and Photoshop most used keyboard shortcuts (get it here yourself!).  Kamila took further handwritten notes to try and remember as much as I could teach her in our 2-hour lesson.  I am confident that Kamila will get faster and faster at editing using the tips I gave her today and as she memorizes more of the keyboard shortcuts.  For our next lesson we will move on to more advanced editing including selective edits, object extraction and lens distortion correction.

Olympus E-P1 Photography Lesson 1-on-1 in St. Petersburg Florida with Ana

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Ana with her brand new Olympus EP-1 a micro 4/3 style camera during our photography lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaAna contacted me last month about taking a 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson here in St. Petersburg as she would be visiting the area from California in March on business.  She also just did not want to take a 2-hour lesson focusing on shooting, she wanted a 4-hour lesson that would also include digital photography editing and workflow.  We were able to make our cross-continent schedules work out, but there was just the small matter of Ana not actually having a camera at the time!  Fortunately, she received an Olympus E-P1 as a present soon before her trip to Florida.  The E-P1 is a micro four-thirds style SLR camera and my first time with this particular model.  I have only had hands on time with one other micro four-thirds camera and was not impressed with it, especially from an ergonomics and usability standpoint.  However, the E-P1 was fitted with the same dedicated exposure, ISO, WB and focus buttons a proper DSLR body would have and the menu system itself was intuitive to navigate.  The E-P1 still hits the same limits the other micro four-thirds camera did, which was slow auto-focusing and frames per second.  If you can live without using it as an action camera, then I found the build quality to be solid and the camera to be very usable for still subjects.

Ana and I practiced some natural light portrait photography among other things before heading into a local frozen yogurt shop I like to use to teach digital photograph editing lessons in.  Since she uses a Mac as I do, I recommended getting Aperture 3 to be the start of her digital photograph workflow and where she can make many useful edits.  

I look forward to seeing her photos of California when she returns and hopefully she will be able to see a few alligators while she is still in Florida!