Photography Lessons

Canon T3i 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in downtown St. Petersburg Florida with Elizabeth

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Elizabeth with her new Canon T3i learning how to use manual mode & leave auto-mode behind!I met Elizabeth on a warm St. Petersburg morning for our first of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons to help her get off auto-mode and on her way to making photographs with complete control over exposure.  She brought with her a new Canon T3i and a pair of lenses (18-55mm & 70-300mm).  We begin with how to properly change lenses to minimize the amount of time the DSLR's sensor is exposed which could possibly lead to getting unwelcome spots on it that will need to be tediously cleaned using a special kit or taken to a pro for worry free cleaning.  I still take my own DSLR in to The Camera Cure when it needs a cleaning as I am of messing with the sensor.

Next I showed Elizabeth how to get around her T3i and change all the settings necessary for getting a well exposed and in-focus shot.  We stayed on aperture priority mode most of the 2-hour lesson as the T3i's meter did a pretty good job of selecting the shutter speed.  

Elizabeth would eventually like to make portraits for money, so the conclusion to this first lesson was touching on the basics of what lens, focal length, aperture, shutter speed and when to use and not use flash.  We will go into how to make portraits in much greater detail during our second lesson where I am very thankful she will be bring a model to practice on saving me from having to be both instructor and subject!

1-on-1 Nikon D90 DSLR Photography Lesson with Chris at The Pier

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Getting to eye level with your subject during a 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson with a NIkon D90 in St. Petersburg FloridaFor our second of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons Chris and I went out to The Pier in downtown St. Petersburg in an attempt to photograph birds in flight, in particular pelicans.  Well, there were many pelicans, but they were all only lazily napping or preening themselves!  Still, we were able to practice good composition skills, switching back and forth from shutter priority to manual mode, as well as AF-S to AF-C focus modes.  Now Chris will have both brown pelican shots in her portfolio and a cormorant too!

We also practiced basic landscape photography from the top of The Pier, which on a Monday morning we had entirely to ourselves.  Since Chris will soon visit the Smoky Mountains I pointed out that for landscape shots one does not always automatically use a wide angle lens.  If a mountain is very far away then using a medium telephoto lens like a 70-200mm could be the ideal lens to a landscape shot (see my shot of Mt. Fuji) featuring just the mountain itself.

Chris photographing a small bird during our lesson at The Pier in St. Petersburg

I look forward to seeing Chris' Smoky Mountain images, especially if she makes the effort to wake up an hour before sunrise and really capture some of that morning mist on the mountains!

1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Nikon D90 with Chris

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During our 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson Chris had a chance to photograph these ducklings!On a not too hot St. Petersburg morning I met new DSLR Photography Lesson student Chris for our first of four 1-on-1 photography lessons.  She had taken a photography class about a year ago, but soon after reverted to using auto-mode again so in our lessons I will help her get off of that once and for all and learn to love manual mode!

She has a Nikon D90 and a pair of lenses to go along with her already acquired photography knowledge.  We started with a tour of her DSLR and how to change the four (or five if in manual mode) necessary settings for any given shot.  The D90 has two dials and a top LCD making it pretty quick to be able to do a wholesale set of changes.  For anyone wanting to be serious about shooting in dynamic situations, I highly recommend a DSLR with that feature set, otherwise it will take much longer to change settings than you will most likely have.  

Toward the end of our 2-hour lesson it was a nice surprise to come across a mama duck and her three ducklings.  They provided a very fun subject matter to practice photographing moving subjects.  The key of course is setting the focus mode to AF-C (Ai Servo) and then using good tracking technique to maintain a focus lock on the moving subjects by always keeping the shutter pressed halfway down.

For our second lesson will we head out to The Pier to photograph pelicans and other wonders.

1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Canon XTi with Veronica

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Veronica with her Canon XTi in front of downtown St. Petersburg's banyan treesFor our 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson Veronica came all the way down from Spring Hill, quite a journey down the most unpleasant road in the area, U.S. 19.  Perhaps in reward for that effort we were treated to a beautiful morning in downtown St. Petersburg that was not too hot, with a nice breeze.  

Like many of my photography students, Veronica has had her DSLR for a bit of a long time, but had only ever been using it on auto-mode.  She was familiar with some photography terms from a bit of self-study, but she was hoping our lesson would help her make much better portraits of her children and improve her photography overall in general.  Well, that is exactly what I design the 1-on-1 lessons to do so it was a perfect match in that regard.  

I taught Veronica my (yet to be patented) 4-step process for setting up any given shot, and upon realizing the meter in her Canon XTi was either somehow suffering from some internal problem or just not that good, we almost immediately went into manual mode which produced much better looking exposures.  

We concluded the lesson under the famous banyan trees of downtown St. Petersburg with a little flash portrait practice.  Also, since she only has one lens (18-55mm) at this time and really wanted to be able to make better portraits and get closer to her subjects, I suggested she next invest in a 55-200mm lens or similar to be able to make the shots she needs.  We will meet again later this summer after she practices some more on her own (highly recommended) and perhaps invests in some new gear as well.

1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Canon T1i at The Pier with Kristin

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Purposefully overexposing practice out at The Pier with Kristin and her Canon T1iIn the two weeks since our first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson together Kristin has added greatly to the inventory of her camera bag with a very nice new Manfrotto tripod, a 50mm lens and an external flash!  However, our intended topic for our second of four lessons was bird-in-flight shots so none of her new gear applied to that, but since there bird action around The Pier was uncharacteristially quiet yesterday evening we did end up using her tripod to practice some landscape and sunset shots.  

It was a nice breezy walk out to The Pier where I got Kristin setup with her 70-300mm lens for being able to capture bird-in-flight images, which is not easy to do.  Even though, unfortunately, there were not many birds that particular evening, Kristin took a liking to this kind of photography and will practice more on her own near her hometown area of Gulfport which also has a waterfront and a pier.  

This gave us time for me to show her the basics of tripod usage, like lining up the barrel of the lens flush over one of the tripod's legs and which knob on the ballhead allowed for which adjustment.  We could not have had a great contrast going from birds-in-flight requiring very fast camera movement to long exposure shots on a tripod requiring very little physical effort on the part of the photographer.

We covered a good amount of photography topics once again during our 2-hour lesson which I enjoyed a lot and next up will be putting some more of Kristin's new gear to use!

Macro Jewelry Product 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Canon T3 with James

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James making a macro shot of a ring in a lightbox during our 1-on-1 photography lessonThis morning I headed over to the BB&T Building in downtown St. Petersburg to meet James in his office for an atypical 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson.  He sells rings and other jewelry and wanted help making the best product shots he could using his Canon T3, lightbox and Canon 60mm macro lens.  He also wanted workflow instruction on how to cleanly remove the ring from the background and place it on a pure white one.

We started off with shooting instruction and the best settings to use and also where to place the lights to give the best look on the ring itself.  Since the lighting and subjects were constants, it did not take long to dial in the best settings.  We took those sample shots we made and opened them in Photoshop where I showed James my Quick Select & Refine Edge technique for putting a subject on a clean white background.  In order to produce the best looking edges, I had to use one extra setting I had not used before in the Refine Edge process, teaching myself something new on the fly as well as James!  In the end we were both very pleased with the results we were able to produce.  One other top tip for Photoshop, if you are having trouble selecting an image, do not crop the image at all, leave as much space between the frame and the object as possible, as this was how we were able to get a more accurate quick select.  I told James many times that Photoshop is alive and has feelings and needs to be coerced sometimes into doing things!

James only had a very short and flimsy tripod to put his Canon T3 on so right during the lesson I helped him pick out a very nice Induro tripod and also a cable release!  It was a fun and different lesson than my usual ones and I enjoyed learning about James' various businesses.

Nikon D40 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson with Kelly in St. Petersburg Florida

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Kelly contacted me with a time sensitive need for a 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson so she could use the knowledge for an upcoming shoot.  She has been doing portrait sessions and weddings and wanted help to organize the knowledge she had and get know-how for making consistently sharper images in particular.  Most photographers have no system for setting up a shot, which I think is critically important.  I change my settings in the same progression for each and every shot, every time.  This way I do not miss anything and if a photographer does not have that much experience, it limits the "panic feeling" of hurriedly trying to get a shot that was very different from the one you just took (i.e. indoors to outdoors).  

Just going through the deeper settings on Kelly's Nikon D40 I was able to improve her final image results by 20% even if she instantly forget everything I would soon teach her during our 2-hour lesson.  However, I am not worried about her remembering what we practiced because she took extensive and detailed notes throughout the entire lesson, which I highly recommend.

I am looking forward to seeing Kelly's future portrait and wedding work!