Photography Tips

1-on-1 Nikon D5100 DSLR Photography Lesson with Lisa in St. Petersburg Florida

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Lisa setting up her Nikon D5100 to eliminate the background (create bokeh) during our 1-on-1 photography lessonI met Lisa this very warm June morning for our first of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons in downtown St. Petersburg Florida.  Lisa has been a DSLR owner for a long time, starting with a Nikon D40x.  She now also has a Nikon D5100, but over all these years she was still just shooting on auto-mode.  This morning we started to remedy that as I began to teach her my 5-step process for shooting in manual exposure mode.  

After showing Lisa around her Nikon D5100 body and how to change aperture, shutter speed, etc my first shooting tip was to whenever possible always try and get your back to the sun and have your shadow point at the subject in order to produce the best possible exposure.  When photographing the parking meters above, Lisa has her back to the sun giving herself the best chance of getting a good exposure.  The first shot made facing the other way produced a silhouette of the meters.  There are many simple things about photography that can be done to improve your final images.

Our second lesson next week will be mostly at night learning how to make cool long exposure photographs.

1-on-1 Nikon D5200 DSLR Nikkor 35mm lens Photography Lesson with Janice in downtown St. Petersburg Florida

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Janice using her Nikkor 35mm prime lens to creatively photograph a motorcycle during our photo lesson in downtown St. Petersburg, FloridaIt was a quick turnaround time from my second 1-on-1 DSLR Photograpy Lesson with Janice just last Thursday to our third lesson this morning.  Time is an issue as this Friday she leaves for a big trip to Europe and is cramming in manual shooting photography knowledge so she can produce the best travel photographs she ever has.  We met at the usual spot in downtown St. Petersburg and started out by reviewing a few sunrise shots she took and brushing up on what we had covered previously.

After that it was off shooting some of the architecture and design details of various skyscrapers in the downtown area, mostly using her Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens on her Nikon D5200.  Janice had not used this lens during any of our previous two lessons, but took a quick liking to it for the lens' easily ability to create bokeh and a shallow DoF using its large aperture (mostly f/2).

We covered a lot in our 6 hours of 1-on-1 photography time together and I am confident that if Janice goes through the steps we practiced for each shooting situation she encounters in Europe, she will be very happy with the results.  Have a good trip Janice and I look forward to seeing your shots!

1-on-1 Nikon D5200 DSLR Photography Lesson with Janice in downtown St. Petersburg Florida

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Janice shoots with her Nikon D5200 in South Straub Park in St. Petersburg FloridaOn a very warm June morning I met Janice for our second 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in downtown St. Petersburg Florida.  She said she had only taken just a few shots of a rainbow with her Nikon D5200 since our first lesson almost a month ago.  Janice also claimed to have forgotten most of what we talked about in that first lesson, but as I suspected that was not the case.  A little helpful hinting helped her remember a lot of what we practiced in May.

In addition to teaching Janice how to shoot in manual exposure mode, in this second lesson I started to point out more composition tips and just things in general I look for when framing a photograph.  Some of those things were, including foreground objects to help a shot, framing the entire subject with a border to put more emphasis on the subject, etc.

I will meet Janice again next week for a third lesson before she is off for a trip to Europe!

DSLR Photography Tip - adjust shutter speed first to fix exposure

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If you are photographing a still subject, you should be shooting in manual mode with your DSLR (if you do not know how, I offer 1-on-1 photography lessons that will).  Therefore, you have an aperture you want to shoot at in order to get the best DoF for your subject.  So if your initial shot does not have the exposure you want (underexposed or overexposed), then you should adjust shutter speed first in order to fix the exposure, not aperture or ISO.

In my example photographs above, both images are straight out of the camera at the exact same settings, save for the shutter speeds.  At 1/500th the image is underexposed, which is not surprising since at default daylight settings I only recommend 1/320th as a max shutter speed and today is very overcast with a tropical storm passing by (note the dock is almost underwater!).

I did not change my aperture as I want to maintain the DoF f/11 offers, and I did not adjust the ISO as I kept that set at the lowest in order to maintain the best image quality.  On pretty much every DSLR, even if it has only one dial on the camera body, in manual mode that dial defaults to shutter speed for a reason...because you change shutter speed the most often.  In the photo of the dock, I adjusted the shutter speed from 1/500th to 1/125th to get the exposure I wanted, leaving all other settings the same.

So remember when shooting still subjects in manual mode, adjust the shutter speed first in order to fix any exposure problems.

Photography Tip - replace a busy background with clean sky Corvette Photography

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This Corvette is real, and the sky is real, but they were not really photographed together.

I went to a Corvette car show in South Straub Park this past Saturday mostly to meet the owner of the above customized Corvette.  I first photographed his car back in November.  He was not by his car at the time and only by chance found my photograph of it.  Since then I have been in regular contact with the owner, Bobby, about possibly doing a full shoot of his Corvette.  That still has not happened yet, but at least on Saturday I got a chance to go see him and say hello.  

This is the original image as made on site at a car show in St. Petersburg FloridaI have written several times that shooting cars at car shows often results in less than desirable images, if you want the focus to be on the car itself.  This case was no different as the trees in the background compete for the viewer's eye just as much as the Corvette.  The solution for a busy background?  Replace it with a better one!

Corvette cut out from the background using Photoshop Quick Select ToolIt was pretty straight forward to remove the Corvette from its background using the Quick Select Tool in Photoshop.  I kept the grass foreground as seen above.  I was careful to of course not select the inside of the window so that too could be part of the background replacement.

The replacement background used in the composite image.I went into my photo archives to look for a suitable replacement background.  Using actual objects is rather hard to do as proportions can be very difficult to match (car looks giant, buildings look tiny, etc).  A sky background is usually a good and easy replacement background subject.  I used one I made of Sunset Beach on Treasure Island, Florida.

The new background slipped right behind the Corvette, window included.Then it is just a matter of slipping the sky background layer behind the Corvette layer in Photoshop.  I positioned it taking into consideration cloud placement.  I did not even need to cut out the sandy beach part because that is all hidden behind the Corvette.  The above image is the final composite photograph which allows the viewer to focus on the Corvette as the subject.

Motion blur added to a more advanced edit of the Corvette composite image

After getting a composite image I liked, I experimented with even more Photoshop editing.  I added a motion blur to the grass and a radial blur to the tires to create the illusion that the Corvette is speeding along on the grass.  I darkened the window and put in a silhouette of my own head to show a driver inside to help complete the motion illusion.  What do you think of the motion shot?  Is it convincing or not quite there yet?

Photography Tip - manage the background for less distraction

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This week's photography tip deals with the background of photographs.  The background is one of three things that makes or breaks any photograph.  In the examples above, I sat in the exact same spot to make each photograph.  In the top example much of the background is visible and in varying degrees of focus.  The subject is sharp and well exposed, but despite that the background still distracts from it.  Plus, the subject is not big enough in the frame either.

For the second shot, I used a different lens, different settings, and different composition to make the background as much of a nonfactor as possible, and for the background to even try and complement the subject.  Having a clean background allows the viewer to focus only on the intended subject of the photograph.  

How the difference was accomplished: 

  • 17-50mm f/2.8 lens switched to 50mm f/1.8 lens
  • 38mm focal length to 50mm
  • f/8 to f/2.8

About this subject . . . it is a large light bulb that I found floating in the water behind my apartment one morning.  It is encrusted with barnacles.  It fascinates me how something as fragile as a light bulb could survive in open water long enough to number one become barnacle encrusted and second to not simply have shattered.  I keep it on a bookshelf in my living room as a reminder of how interesting the world is and how such extraordinary things are possible.

1-on-1 Nikon D5200 DSLR Photography Lesson with Janice in St. Petersburg Florida

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Janice with her brand new Nikon D5200 during our photography lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaOn a sunny Tuesday morning I met Janice with her brand new Nikon D5200 in downtown St. Petersburg Florida for a 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson.  This was my first time to get hands on with the Nikon D5200 and the most noticable upgrade to this new model is the much improved graphics on the back LCD screen.  Shutter speed, ISO and aperture are all very prominently displayed visually and numerically.  I wish my old Nikon D80 had such a menu system back when I was learning!

Janice had a Nikon D60 for many years, but only ever used it in auto-mode and she did not want to continue shooting like that with her new Nikon D5200.  For someone only ever shooting in auto-mode, Janice was one of the fastest students I have had to pick up on my 5-step system for making a well exposed and sharp shot in any given shooting situation.  She also learned her way around the camera body quickly to adjust the necessary settings as well.  I was impressed!

She has Nikon's great 17-5mm f/2.8 to pair with her D5200 body as well as the Nikkor 70-300mm lens and a 35mm f/1.8 lens too.  During our first lesson we only had time to practice with the first two lenses though.  I think Janice will be able to progress very quickly and I look forward to our next lesson.