DSLR Photography Lesson Basics with Jeff & his Nikon D3100

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Jeff with his Nikon D3100 in Vinoy Park; The Pier of St. Petersburg in the background - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm lens @ f/2.8 ISO 200 1/250th natural lightNew DSLR Photography Lesson student Jeff was a referral from old high school friend and one-time photo lesson student himself, Mark.  Jeff has an impressive traveling resume and wants to be able to make better photographs on future trips, like one soon to Sydney, Australia.  Thus, he upgraded from a point & shoot camera to a new Nikon D3100.  

As I went through my four step process of setting a DSLR for any type of shot, Jeff seemed to be catching on quick and soon we were leaving aperture priority behind during the lesson and moving onto manual mode.  Having the lesson late in the evening helped hasten our transition to manual mode as the fading light did not allow aperture priority mode to produce acceptable exposures for very long, especially when we practiced photographing moving objects.  

Jeff also took a lot of handwritten notes during the lesson, which is something I recommend unless one has a photographic memory!

I look forward to introducing more advanced photography topics in our future lessons.

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    Tokyo Japan Skyscrapers - Roppongi Hills Tokyo Midtown Tokyo Tower

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    Tokyo Tower (center) Tokyo Midtown skyscraper (right) - Nikon D300 with Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/50th single exposure (not HDR)

    Yesterday I was going through my photography archives searching for a shot (daytime beach) that might be usable for a potential client when I came across these shots of the Tokyo skyline.  They were made from the balcony of a Russian photographer friend who had an amazing condo in central Tokyo.  All these shots are the views he gets to enjoy everyday!  If I recall, his condo was on about the 22nd floor.  The time was around 4:30pm in February of 2009, when the sun sets not so long after 5pm, which is why it already looks like dusk on this overcast day.  None of these shots are HDR, which was just starting to get popular again around 2009.  It is possible to get vivid detail and color without HDR if shooting during the best light of day.

    Tokyo Tower (left) Tokyo Midtown skyscraper (2nd from left) Roppongi Hills skyscraper (center-right) - Nikon D300 f/11 ISO 400 1/250th single exposure (not HDR)Just as my photography career was starting to take off in Japan, I was set to move back to Florida.  This was the last time I visited with my Russian photographer friend.  

    Tokyo Midtown is the middle skyscraper in the above shot and at the time was the newest mega-office-entertainment-shopping building.  The shops on the lower floors were great, if you had at least $500 for the cheapest item seemingly.  Roppongi Hills is the right-most skyscraper, and was the previous title holder of newest mega-office-entertainment-shopping building.  Roppongi Hills remained the far more interesting architecturally, and is home to the best movie theater I have ever been to.  

    Roppongi Hills in detail from up high - Nikon D300 with Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/11 ISO 400 1/160th single exposure (not HDR)I am glad to have these photographs to remind me of my last visit with a friend I am probably never going to see again.  I still follow his work on flickr (Vladimir Zakharov) as he never ceases to find new roof top views to photograph.

    DSLR Photography Lesson with Terri and her Nikon D80 in St. Petersburg Florida

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    Terri with her Nikon D80 showing good handholding technique on a bench in North Straub Park in downtown St. Petersburg - setup: f/11 ISO 200 1/60th SB-800 Speedlight in TTL mode hotshoe mountedMy first morning lesson in awhile was my first DSLR Photography Lesson with Terri and her Nikon D80.  Terri has experience from the film SLR world, but needed to know how to translate that to the DSLR world.  I enjoyed hearing Terri refer to adjusting the ISO on her D80 in terms of using film speed!  Isn't it hard to imagine now that changing your ISO in the pre-digital world required changing your entire roll of film?  

    It was a pleasant overcast morning in downtown St. Petersburg, the first time I had a lesson all summer that did not require taking an immediate shower upon returning home.  I began the lesson as I do most by explaining aperture, then the rest of the 4-step setup for making any photograph.  Terri liked my "top of the mountain" explanation for aperture and how the smaller numbers are larger apertures with shallower depths of field.  The next great revelation was that of which focus mode to use when.  She had been using AF-A which is useless.  The camera is not good at deciding which to use on the fly as AF-A claims to do.  Only AF-S and AF-C should ever be used.  

    We concluded the lesson with some park bench portraits with me having Terri take one shot without flash and then the next using her pop-up flash.  Even with just the pop-up flash on her D80 the difference flash made in the overall exposure was great.  The background was less blown out because the flash exposed the subject and the rest of the exposure settings exposed the background much more accurately.  

    I look forward to next working with Terri out at The Pier using her 200-400mm lens!

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    DSLR Macro Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Florida with Pam & her Canon 60D

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    Pam's Canon 60D with Canon 60mm f/2.8 macro lens tripod mounted photographing one of my turtles (inset)Before I entered the DSLR world I had an Olympus 5060 bridge camera.  One of the reasons I held onto it for so long was because of its articulating LCD screen.  I was just really useful for low angle and high angle shots.  Pam's Canon 60D has a flip-out LCD screen that makes macro photography much more comfortable, if not just plain easier.  For our fourth of four DSLR Photography Lessons I met her at the usual downtown St. Petersburg spot for a lesson on the very difficult macro photography.  

    Here is what I used to think:  just buy a macro lens, and boom, you can get those insect shots where you see each segment of the insect's eye.  Umm, no.  In reality those shots use a very complex setup and either a dead, or at least drugged, insect.  

    For our lesson we used the available flora around Beach Drive, which provided a surprisingly ample selection from berries on an evergreen bush, to red flowers not yet in bloom, to a full bloom bird of paradise flower.  

    Rain did force us back into cover on the Museum of Fine Arts' front promenade, but that was fine as I was ready for such an occassion for inside my pocket nestled one of my turtle friends who normally resides on my desk.  These shooting conditions also allowed use of Pam's 430 EX II external flash.  Without the flash, we needed an exposure of two minutes to produce a well exposed shot!  With the flash, we were able to use 1/60th of a second.  

    Though this was the last lesson of a 4-pack of lessons, Pam will sign-up for another 4-pack and continue our weekly lessons next week debuting her new Canon 70-200mm f/4 lens.  Thanks Pam and I look forward to introducing you to some of my pelican friends at The Pier!

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    Banyan Trees of downtown St. Petersburg appreciation

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    Banyan Tress in downtown St. Petersburg - 7-bracket HDR @ f/11Recently I have had to answer the question of why I live in St. Petersburg to a couple of different people.  It would be better to say why I live in the specific part of St. Petersburg I do:  Snell Isle & the Old Northeast.  That I can answer easily:  because of the trees.  The neighborhoods here are covered in large trees of many different varieties.  

    The banyan trees in the above photo are in a non-descript part of downtown on a not so often traveled sidestreet.  There are much larger banyan trees on Beach Drive that get lots of attention.  As I was walking back to my car from a small photo job I came across these banyans and thought I should make the effort to photograph them and show some of the hidden beauty of the city I live in.

    Banyan Tree roots in downtown St. Petersburg - 7-bracket HDR @ f/11Luckily the photo job I had to do required a tripod so I was able to make HDR shots of the banyan trees.  I used the tripod on the shortest leg settings, requiring me to sit on the ground for both shots, which is fine with me as I like the slowness using a tripod requires for making shots.

    What trees are there in your neighborhood and why do you live in the city you do?

    Photographing common objects in public for historical purposes

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    Will street signs still exist in 100 years? Photographs help remind what the past was like.Photographers often go to great lengths to shoot the most impressive subjects as possible:  a stunning Florida sunset, a beautiful model, nature, etc.  Such subjects make it easy to create a memorable photograph.  However, oridinary scenes and objects should not be overlooked by the modern photographer, for in one hundred years from now, what is modern will appear quaint.  I recall seeing old photographs of a street construction crew.  At the time the photograph would have appeared very ordinary.  To modern eyes, the photos were very interesting to see how construction workers dressed back then, what they brought with them for lunch, what machinery were they using.  

    I made the above non-descript street sign shot while teaching a DSLR Photography lesson to just demonstrate how easy it is to create bokeh using a 50mm lens.  Back at home I was halfway to deleting it when I paused and recalled the old construction crew shots.  Maybe in 2111 there will be someone wondering what it was like to cross a street that had actual cars on it.  

    In my own personal shooting over the fall I will shoot a series of "ordinary scenes & objects" with the aim of documenting daily life in 2011 in case anyone in the future has the same fondness I have for looking at old photos of such things. 

    Ford Thunderbird 1955-1957 First Generation Sacred Heart Church Tampa Wedding

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    Ford Thunderbird 1955-1957 First Generation - decorated for a wedding in Tampa - Nikon D300 with Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/125th tripod mountedIn the early summer I second shot for a very large Tampa Wedding.  My first duty was to photograph the groom getting ready then head to the Sacred Heart Church in downtown Tampa to get shots of the pre-wedding ceremony.  This allowed me to photograph a first generation circa 1955-1957 Ford Thunderbird in full "Just Got Married" decoration.  Though I had the time, there were still obstacles to shooting how I wanted to in limo drivers arriving and taxis and other regular traffic zooming by so I had to keep one eye on staying alive and the other on the Thunderbird.  

    1955-1957 Ford Thunderbird looking very classy in front of Sacred Heart Church in Tampa - Nikon D300 with Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 5-bracket HDR tripod mountedDespite there being traffic, that did not stop me from scurrying out into the middle of the street to make the above HDR image of the elaborate architecture of the Sacred Heart Church entrance complemented by the classic profile lines of the Thunderbird.  Cars from the 50s have such a presence.  I wonder if current auto workers feel as much pride when a Focus rolls off the assembly line today as they did when one of these beauties did in the 50s?  

    Leave the future behind . . . - Nikon D300 with Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/100th tripod mountedI very much look forward to someday owning a classic car myself and doing the best thing the continental United States has to offer, driving from coast-to-coast.