Alok with his Canon 60D at the end of our DSLR Photography Lesson in downtown St. PetersburgWith the sun setting earlier and tempertures only at hot and not broil, DSLR Photography Lessons on weekday evenings are starting earlier. I met new student Alok at 5pm in downtown St. Petersburg. He was no longer happy with the results from his point and shoot camera so he went right from that to a Canon 60D! My 1-on-1 private lessons are exactly designed to help someone bridge that large gap between using a camera on auto-everything to using a DSLR with auto-nothing. Although there is a good amount to learn at first, it does not necessarily need to take a long time to go from brand new DSLR owner to skilled photographer using manual mode.
Case in point, Alok showed he was quick on the uptake on how to correct overexposed images by manually adjusting shutter speed and aperture. We started out using aperture priority mode, but in the early evening light, a dark subject (a tree) and a very pale white-gray sky was too tricky for his Canon 60D's meter to expose correctly. The sky was coming out blown out. So by switching to manual mode and increasing the shutter speed from a glacial 1/20th of a second to 1/100th of a second, the sky was no longer blown out, though at a bit of a tradeoff in that the tree was now darker. Still, as a photographer, I want to make that choice myself, not leave it up to the camera to decide for me.
Alok only has one lens now for his Canon 60D, a Sigma 18-50mm f/3.5-5.6. This lens is a good workhorse choice, but to get the kinds of photos he told me he would like, he will definitely need a longer lens around 70-200mm. I also advised him to invest in an external flash since he will be doing so much indoor shooting.
--Professional Model DSLR Photography Lessons now available!