DSLR Photography Lesson with Jim & his Sony A33 at Sawgrass Lake Park

Jim with his new Sony A33 during a DSLR photography lesson at Sawgrass Lake Park in St. PetersburgAfter a lot of lessons out on The Pier recently, it was a nice change of scenery this morning to meet Jim at Sawgrass Lake Park for our first DSLR Photography Lesson.  He added a Sony A33 to his camera collection, and has already acquired a bagfull (literally) of lenses.  He had a knowledge of photography vocabulary which helped as I explained to him my 4-step process for setting up a shot.  

We spent most of the lesson out on the network of boardwalks in the park, which featured, as many Florida parks do, a lookout point over a body of water.  We saw ospreys cruising the skies spying for fish, a lone alligator in the distance, and the usual assortment of wading birds.  They were all too far away from the lookout point to be able to photograph, though.  We did get a chance to see butterflies, squirrels and dragonflies up close.  

Due to the treecover along the boardwalk we soon had to switch to manual mode (from aperture priority) to produce the shots we wanted to.  Jim told me of a favorite spot of his in the park looking down along a long, narrow, watery path.  It was our last shooting location of the day and it proved to be quite a challenging shot to get right.  Once aperture, ISO and shutter speed were dialed in though, we were able to make a shot better than the eye could see in the given light at the time.

I look forward to seeing Jim's future nature and theme park shots!

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Cessna Sailboat Helicopter St. Petersburg Tampa Bay

Cessna taking off from Albert Whitted Airport St. Petersburg Florida - f/8 ISO 200 1/800th using shutter priorityEven though it is not entirely correct or perhaps in anyway connected, the inspiration for this post was, "One if by sea, two if by land."  The only real connection between all four of these photographs is that they were taken from The Pier while I was otherwise engaged teaching a DSLR photography lesson.  The photo of the Cessna plane above was taken with a student in practice for photographing eagles in Alaska.  Tracking a small moving object can be tricky and is definitely a skill that needs to be repeatedly practiced and refined.  This plane had just taken off from Albert Whitted Airport in downtown St. Petersburg.

Setting sail for Tampa Bay - f/7.1 ISO 200 1/800th using shutter priorityThis sailboat represents the whales the above student will photograph in Alaska.  It is kind of funny how The Pier with a little imagination can be a single practice point for photographing the wide ranging wildlife of Alaska!  For me, my goal with the sailboat shot was to get everything framed tightly and neatly regarding the boat's position in the frame, the location of the horizon and the predominantly cloud background.

Helicopter frozen in midair over Tampa Bay - f/4 ISO 200 1/4000th using aperture priorityA few months earlier, again with the same photo student, we were also on the roof of The Pier photographing anything that flew by.  What does it take to freeze a helicopter's blades in motion?  It would seem 1/4000th of a second does the job nicely.  Helicopters always make me think of Magnum P.I.  

Police ride jet skis in Florida - f/4 ISO 200 1/2500th using aperture priorityA few minutes later we were back to looking for waterborne subjects to photograph again and I saw for the first time a police jet ski!  Personally, I am against jet skis and other similar watercraft they just seem to be "too much."  They are incredibly noisy and it just seems so uncivilized for one person to be able to disrupt the Sea so much.  To me it just looks disrespectful.  

If not "one if by sea, two if by land" that what other connecting theme may you suggest for these four photos?  

DSLR Photography Strobist Lesson with SB-600 in St. Petersburg Florida

Sarina with her strobist setup of SB-600 Speedlight & Yongnuo radio remotes in St. PetersburgBack at The Pier again this evening for my third of four DSLR Photography Lessons with Sarina.  This lesson followed our established format of practicing off-camera-flash, "strobist," photography the first hour then editing digital photos she took a few days prior.  I was glad to hear that Sarina improved her portrait shooting settings week to week no longer using any ISO above the minimum 200 on her Nikon D90.  This week we worked on perfecting using the right shutter speed with the right aperture and the right speedlight power setting.  It is really important to keep in mind that the speedlight lights your subject while the DSLR's exposure settings control the ambient (background) light.  

First in our practice tonight we decided to include the background in the shots, thereby using a small aperture with a slower shutter speed.  I then said I like bokeh and longer focal length portraits, so that meant setting a larger aperture and compensating for that increase in light by setting a faster shutter speed.  Typically I would like to use about f/11 and 1/100th for the former and then f/5.6 and 1/200th for the latter.

We concluded by editing some of the photos Sarina took on a maternity shoot on Sunday.  Most of the editing questions Sarina had revolved around effectively using the quick select tool to make selective edits to very specific parts of the photo only (SEE HOW TO DO THIS).  For example, a bit of clothing material needed to be removed along a defined edge.  Without first selecting the material to be removed, it would have been extremely difficult or near impossible to maintain that defined edge just clone stamping freely.  Later I came up with an on the fly new way of whitening teach by going into the color balance settings and taking the yellow/blue slider more toward the blue end thereby reducing the yellow look of teeth.  We of course did a quick select of only the person's teeth as we did not want to reduce yellow in the overall image.

Sarina has another maternity shoot before our next lesson so I look forward to seeing her continued progress.

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DSLR Photography Tripod Lesson with Barbie & her Nikon D700

This portrait is how the humidity made Barbie & I feel during out tripod DSLR photography lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaBefore a few weeks ago, I only had about two DSLR Photography Lessons in two years out at The Pier along the St. Petersburg waterfront.  In the past two weeks I have now lost count how many times along with a student I have made the walk (or trolley ride) to The Pier.  I am sure I will be returning often as for such a small location, it is a very fertile photography location offering bird photography, including birds in flight, sunset shots, cityscape shots and panoramic cloud shots.  

Barbie returned for her second of four lessons after a nearly four month period.  She showed up with a new Manfrotto tripod, but to my disappointment left her amazing new Nikkor 85mm f/1.4G lens at home!!  She promises to bring it for our third lesson though.  I cannot wait to see that lens in action.  

After giving Barbie a quick refresher on setting aperture, ISO, WB and focus mode the rest of the lesson focused on how to best use a tripod to produce shots that would otherwise not be possible.  This begins with actually using all the features one's tripod has and how to even just be able to expand, collapse and adjust the tripod itself.  Tripod technology has advanced since the old days of adjusting three different levels.  Nowadays there is just a single release point controlling a ball head mount allowing for much faster and more fluid adjustments.  

Once the sun sunk below the horizon I showed Barbie how switching to manual mode and choosing the exact shutter speed we want rather than what the camera thinks is best allows the photographer to produce images much more dynamic than what the eye sees once daylight has all but vanished.  

Next up will be a portrait lesson with Barbie and her new 85mm lens!

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Dramatic Stormy Sky Over Tampa Bay From The Pier

Dramatic Sky over Tampa Bay - 5-bracket HDR f/8 ISO 200 tripod mounted with cable releaseI have been starting to miss mountains the past few weeks.  I watched every stage of the 2011 Tour de France as the riders first went over the Pyrenees and then the Alps.  The helicopter views of the French countryside were often as stunning as the cycling action.  With the option to make landscapes of mountains and architecture shots of old castles, I was thinking, "Florida really has nothing in comparison."

Well, Florida has almost nothing.  Here we do have near daily dramatic sunsets and stormy skies.  Each twilight brings a slightly different cloud pattern, sky color and reflection over Tampa Bay (if looking east from The Pier as in the above photo).

Still, once one lives around mountains, it is hard to forget them.  I imagine it is the same for living by the Sea.  Perhaps the combination of mountains and sea are why so many songs are written about California.  

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DSLR Photography Lesson with Cindy & her carbon fiber monopod

Cindy has yet more new gear! In this photo her new carbon fiber monopod & great Black Rapid camera strapNow less than a week away from her grand photography trip to photograph Alaska's wildlife, Cindy met me in downtown St. Petersburg for our fourth of four "next generation" lessons.  Last year Cindy took a few lessons as well, but over this spring and summer the lessons have been with her all knew updated gear, least of which is her awesome Nikkor 70-200mm VR II f/2.8G lens.  For this lesson she debuted a carbon fiber monopod I recommended for her as well as the awesome Black Rapid RS7 strap.  

As you can see from the photo above, her Nikon D90 when connected to the aforementioned 70-200mm VR II f/2.8G lens and 2x teleconverter is quite the heavy setup for handheld use.  The monopod will not only provide stability and a level shooting platform, but perhaps most of all for Cindy it basically eliminates all the weight of her DSLR and lens.  I was really impressed with the Optek monopod.  Combined with a very smooth head, it seems like great value for a carbon fiber rig all told under $150.  

I was really anxious to see the Black Rapid RS7 strap in person.  I knew it would be good, how can it not be when it very sensibly takes the camera/lens weight off of your neck and puts it onto your shoulder?  From the second I tried hers on I knew it would be my next gear investment, and a soon one at that.  I will provide a full review then.  Even now though I can state 100% that if your neck strap is killing you, get this Black Rapid strap or one of the several other types of strap Black Rapid offers.  I will be getting the RS-Sport version.

For this lesson at The Pier the pelicans were unfortunately not as active as they were during Natasha's lesson the same time yesterday morning.  Still, the introduction of the monopod and new strap brought a whole new set of shooting ergonomics for me to advice Cindy on.  We also got some good eagle photography practice by photographing incoming Cessna planes.

I hope Cindy comes back from Alaska with the whale fluke shot she wants as well as some great bear, eagle and other wildlife shots!

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DSLR Photography Lesson with Golda from The Pier St. Petersburg

Golda setting up a sunset shot from The Pier looking at downtown St. Petersburg - DSLR Photography LessonsIt was yet another beautiful Florida sunset for Golda's second of four DSLR Photography Lessons.  For the first lesson we went to Vinoy Park, for this one we went from the top to the bottom of The Pier.  This day ended for me as it began, teaching how to photograph pelicans, which is one of my favorite things to do so not a bad day!

The other focus for the lesson besides bird photography was sunset & twilight images using a tripod.  Despite the small size of Golda's tripod, I helped her position it between the railings so that she could still get good sunset shots.  Students often ask about tripods.  They ask, "should I get one?" and, "what is a good tripod to get?"  The first question is easy to answer:  YES . . . get a tripod for sure.  The second one is very difficult to answer.  When I tell someone I think acceptable tripods start at $300, they usually blanch.  When I say a real no compromises tripod is around $600, well, that loses most people.  So then I come around to saying that maybe for $150 you can get one that is not entirely junk that sounds more reasonable.  Photographers have a saying though, "you only want to buy a tripod once."  

That said, next on Golda's gear list to get is an external flash, which I think is another must for any DSLR photographer.  I will be seeing Golda next Thursday evening as well and I look forward to showing her what new photography opportunities a proper flash brings.  

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