1-on-1 Canon T3i DSLR Photography Lesson low light practice in Tampa Florida with Sara

Practicing low light photography in a parking garage in Tampa Florida with Sara and her Canon T3iFor the second Thursday morning in a row, I met Sara in downtown Tampa in Curtis Hixon Park.  Since our first lesson seven days ago, she has been practicing a lot and had some questions.  She found out that making photographs indoors is not as straight forward as it is out in broad daylight.  She showed me a few photo situations that were causing her trouble via sample shots still on her memory card.  I then told her of my default indoor settings of f/5.6 1/60th and ISO 800 and how that would have allowed her to get the kind of exposure she wanted, along with using flash too of course.  

Then to put this in practice we stepped out of the bright sunshine and into a parking garage that had as little ambient light as any home or event space gets.  First I showed Sara how to get acceptable results without flash by cranking the ISO up to 3200!  Next I had her use the built-in pop up flash which allowed for a more practical ISO of 800.  I do not recommend relying on the pop up flash, but it can make due until an external flash can be invested in.

We finished our time in the parking garage with a few fum motion blur shots by zooming in and out while we pressed the shutter (see above photo).