DSLR Photography Long Exposure Lesson with Scott on Sunset Beach St. Petersburg

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Practicing long exposure photography - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/4 ISO 200 2sec tripod mounted with cable releaseNew DSLR Photography student, Scott, is a native of St. Petersburg.  He loves to photograph Florida's great twilight skies after the sun goes down.  He recently bought a Nikon D50 from a friend.  He has photography knowledge from the film days, but wanted to learn how to change the settings (and why) on a DSLR camera.  He was also trying to photograph twilight skies handheld!

The first thing I had Scott do is get his D50 onto his (headless) tripod.  Then I explained my progression for setting settings on my own camera:  aperture -> ISO -> white balance -> focus mode & points.  I told him to say goodbye to the presets on the D50's exposure dial and that we would only work with aperture priority and manual exposure the rest of the evening.  

Scott had a great enthusiasm for photography and photography knowledge.  He wisely had a notebook with him to write down the things I was going over with him.  As excited as he was about this preliminary stuff, his mind was about to really be blown . . .

Scott said he like to shoot well after sunset, and as mentioned before he was not using his tripod for this.  Plus he was not manually controlling the shutter.  So I had him setup his tripod mounted Nikon and compose the shot how he liked, then set his exposure to 10 seconds and put the shutter on the timer to reduce shake (since he had no remote).  He was amazed at how long 10 seconds felt and that it seemed like magic.  You can imagine what happened when we finally did 30 second exposures and even a bulb mode shot of 79 seconds!.

It felt great to be able to give Scott the tips he needed to be able to make the types of photographs he wanted to.  I look forward to seeing what he comes up with! 

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    • Bride Series - Rosa

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    Pass-A-Grille Beach -- Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 & SB-600 off cameraIt is hard to say which Pinellas Country beach is my favorite to photograph at, it may just come down to where I have been the luckiest with sunsets and random things, like when at Pass-A-Grille Beach a great blue heron walks into the frame while trying to photograph a bride.  Such was the case in the above photograph with Rosa, the latest entry in my Bride Series.  

    Pass-A-Grille Beach -- Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 & SB-600 off cameraHowever, the great blue heron did linger a bit too long and I finally had to shoo it along its way in order to get a clean background.  I am not even sure Rosa was aware of the large bird behind.  I had no trouble at all getting Rosa to show real emotion for these portraits.  I am always grateful for that!

    Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 & SB-600 off cameraBesides having a very beautiful dress, and being unafraid of getting it sandy, Rosa wore a fabulous veil that as soon as I saw it as she arrived at the beach I knew would later make for some great bride portraits.  I had to carefully position my two strobes in order to light the veil and her face while trying to keep shadows to a minimum, all before Rosa's arms got too tired.  I have subsequently used the above image on the wedding version of my business cards.

    Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 & SB-600 off cameraWhen everything comes together:  weather, sunset, bride's emotion, dress, props (veil) it makes photography a real pleasure for both the photographer and the bride knowing that the results are going to be so satisfying.

    Strobist DSLR Photography lesson with the Digital Divas Meetup Group

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    Strobist lesson on location with the Digital Divas Meetup GroupFor over a year I have been teaching 1-on-1 private DSLR Photography lessons.  A couple weeks ago April from the Digital Divas Meetup.com group contacted me about teaching some photography lessons.  I proposed a beginner's off camera camera flash (strobist) lesson and 11 divas signed up.  We met at a beach on Treasure Island about an hour and 15 minutes before sunset, and as you can see in the photo above, went well into complete darkness.  

    For in the field lessons, i.e. when you actually shoot, I choose to teach 1-on-1 private lessons because I want to maximize how much a student can learn in the normal 2-hour lesson block time.  Basically it comes down to teaching one student a lot, or, for group lessons, teaching many students potentially only a little.  

    Also with a group lesson there are many more unknowns that come up.  Pretty much each of the eleven students had a different camera, save for two students how had Canon 50D's.  However, I assumed that anyone signing up for a beginning strobist class, a semi-advanced photography skill, would already have mastery over changing basic settings on their DSLR.  

    Despite those challenges, I was able to setup a situation where each student got a multiple chances to use an off camera flash.  I ended up just setting up my own speedlights using my own triggers and just passing the transceiver to the next student, one after the other.  Although my teaching efficiency was far lower than during a private lesson, it seemed all the students learned something about off camera flash, especially how cool it is and now have a new area of photography to explore. 

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    • De Soto National Memorial Florida Park

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    View from De Soto National Memorial hill - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 400 1/320th

    I am always searching the west-central Florida Google map for new parks, preserves and forests to visit and explore.  De Soto National Memorial, on the map, is a very humble tip of land jutting out into Tampa Bay.  DogFriendly.com gave its beaches a dog friendly rating.  The park exceeded all my expectations and is a true hidden gem in the Anna Maria Island and Bradenton area.  

    Water not over Kiki's head - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/125th f/8After a bit of disappointment at the underwhelming and dog unfriendly Lake Manatee State Park, we still had a thirst for adventure in Manatee County that day, but an approaching rain storm caused us to hesitate.  I decided to press on anyways and as you can see above the storm was already well past once we arrived.  My philosophy:  It is better to regret doing something than to regret not doing something.  The beach was very natural, really just small coves among a coastline of mangrove trees.  The water was shallow and calm, allowing Kiki for the first time to be able to stand and walk around in any body of water.  She really loved being able to do that and I imagine any other water loving dog would as well.  These calm conditions also allowed me to without fear take my Nikon D300 out in the water!  I was knee deep for this shot.  One warning though, there are some random sharp shells around even in the water.  I cut my left big toe!  

     settler ruins/haikyo -- Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 400 1/125thBesides a beautiful, natural, dog-friendly waterfront, the memorial had a lot of great history that we did not have time to study much this visit.  There were some scary photo realistic placards of Native Americans and Spanish Conquistadors hidden along the trail that startled me (and Kiki too).  It is always nice to find a haikyo/ruins site, like the one above, as well.

    Beware the Devil Dog! -- Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5 ISO 400 1/800thDe Soto National Memorial is a highly recommended park for an afternoon trip that offers history, trail walking, hilltop views and dog-friendly private beaches.  We will definitely be back soon.  If you visit, just keep you eyes open for the Devil Dog!


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    Snell Isle Series - 03 - Bird of Paradise Flowers of Snell Isle Florida

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    Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G @ f/4 ISO 200 1/160th Strobist: Nikon SB-800 Speedlight @ 1/16th power with diffuser cap on tripod backlighting flower triggered by Yongnuo radio remotes

    I had been wanting to photograph these Bird of Paradise (strelitzia) flowers in my neighborhood for at least six weeks.  Day after day I would be walking Kiki past the flowers thinking, "maybe this evening I will come photograph them."  Then there would be no good ones in bloom.  By that I mean already dying petals on the flower or they were too low to the ground and therefore I could not photograph the flower with a clean (no distractions) background.  Finally, after a heavy rainstorm, everything came together two evenings ago and I was able to accomplish a photography goal and continue the Snell Isle Series.  

    Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G @ f/22 ISO 200 1s Strobist: Nikon SB-800 Speedlight @ 1/16th power with diffuser cap on tripod backlighting flower triggered by Yongnuo radio remotesBird of Paradise flowers secrete a nectar that ants love to eat.  Even just a short time after a very heavy rain, the ants were already back out to the nectar trough.  I did not even think to sample the nectar myself until just now!  Maybe next time I pass by.

    I cannot help but think if one of these is really angry that the other totally invaded its space . . .The type of Bird of Paradise flower that grows in my neighborhood are part of medium-sized long-leafed plants that make for very attractive landscaping even without any blooms.  I will still keep my eye out for a particularly good bloom for future photographs, especially one with a lot of ants feeding on the nectar.

    Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5 Keyboard Shortcuts Quick Guide

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    Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5 are two key applications in my digital photo editing workflow.  I have been increasingly teaching my DSLR photography students my post processing workflow, in addition to in the field making photograph lessons.  I rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts for greatly speeding up my editing, which is necessary when I have to deliver hundreds of images to clients in a short period of time.  

    So I put together a quick guide of the keyboard shortcuts I most commonly use in Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.  Most of these keyboard shortcuts should also work in older versions.  I learned them by looking through the menus and seeing the shortcut letter, by accident and by reading other photography websites.  

    Let me know any additional keyboard shortcuts you use in the comments below. 

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