Photography Lessons

Olympus E-P1 Photography Lesson 1-on-1 in St. Petersburg Florida with Ana

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Ana with her brand new Olympus EP-1 a micro 4/3 style camera during our photography lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaAna contacted me last month about taking a 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson here in St. Petersburg as she would be visiting the area from California in March on business.  She also just did not want to take a 2-hour lesson focusing on shooting, she wanted a 4-hour lesson that would also include digital photography editing and workflow.  We were able to make our cross-continent schedules work out, but there was just the small matter of Ana not actually having a camera at the time!  Fortunately, she received an Olympus E-P1 as a present soon before her trip to Florida.  The E-P1 is a micro four-thirds style SLR camera and my first time with this particular model.  I have only had hands on time with one other micro four-thirds camera and was not impressed with it, especially from an ergonomics and usability standpoint.  However, the E-P1 was fitted with the same dedicated exposure, ISO, WB and focus buttons a proper DSLR body would have and the menu system itself was intuitive to navigate.  The E-P1 still hits the same limits the other micro four-thirds camera did, which was slow auto-focusing and frames per second.  If you can live without using it as an action camera, then I found the build quality to be solid and the camera to be very usable for still subjects.

Ana and I practiced some natural light portrait photography among other things before heading into a local frozen yogurt shop I like to use to teach digital photograph editing lessons in.  Since she uses a Mac as I do, I recommended getting Aperture 3 to be the start of her digital photograph workflow and where she can make many useful edits.  

I look forward to seeing her photos of California when she returns and hopefully she will be able to see a few alligators while she is still in Florida!

Nikon D700 & Nikkor 24-70mm 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson St. Petersburg - Kasia

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Kasia photographing her son during our 2nd 1-on-1 DSLR photography lesson in St. Petersburg with her Nikon D700Since our first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson last week Kasia has gotten the excellent Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G lens.  For our second lesson she also brought her son who is a cheerful 11-month old fond of taking off his socks and throwing his pacifier (who isn't?).  Now that Kasia has had more time with her Nikon D700 and an actual lens to use on it, we began this lesson with a Q&A session where I had to dispel some amateur photography advice (like she needs a UV filter for her lens, ha!).  She asked about metering modes (stay in matrix) and the number of focus points (stay with a single one) as well as how to fix a photograph where the highlights are blown out.  

After that we headed over to South Straub Park to practice how to compose by either setting the focus and recomposing or by framing the shot then just moving the focus point onto the desired subject.  We found some shade and I had Kasia practice her portrait technique on me first to get the ergonomics of moving focus points down before attempting to make portraits of her more active son.  

I will see Kasia right again tomorrow afternoon where we will continue to build on her DSLR photography skills.

Canon 60D 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson in St. Petersburg Florida with Parag 2

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Parag with his Canon 60D & Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens in downtown St. Petersburg for our 2nd photography lessonFor our second of four 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons I met Parag once again in downtown St. Petersburg this time focusing on using his Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens on his Canon 60D DSLR.  I often teach photography lessons based on just using a 50mm lens as besides being the cheapest lens one can buy, it is also one of the most fun to use because it can easily create bokeh, is good in low light, can be used for portraits and is small and light physically.

We spent most of our time in the interior of downtown St. Petersburg looking for abstract patterns to photograph, as well as motorcycles and lights for bokeh.  In between we stopped to practice making natural light portraits using the 50mm lens.  I stressed to Parag that when using large apertures like f/2.8 and even f/2 that it is important not to set the focus on the eyes and recompose, but rather first frame the shot as you like then move the focus point in the frame to fall upon the subject's eyes.  It is an extra step to take in making a shot, but an important one in order to insure maximum sharpness of the portrait subject's eyes.  

I had another very good time talking with Parag on subjects beyond photography too.  I discovered we both share a great enthusiasm for the E46 M3!  Hopefully he will get one soon so we can photograph it in one of our two remaining lessons!  

Nikon D700 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson St. Petersburg - Kasia

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Kasia with her brand new Nikon D700 during our first photography lesson in downtown St. PetersburgOn a humid evening in downtown St. Petersburg after a sudden rain fell, I met Kasia for our first 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson.  She is just getting started in the DSLR world, but enters it with the powerful Nikon D700.  That is plenty of DSLR to grow into!  Her D700 was brand, brand new.  We started the lesson with me helping her just setup the camera itself (date, time, file naming system) and then I showed her some of the more in-depth settings that I use from years of experience shooting Nikon.  We followed that with a basic tour of the camera body giving a name to each part (finger dial, thumb dial, D-pad, etc.) so that she could understand my instructions for changing settings.

The rain stopped and we began practicing how to get the best exposure by setting aperture, shutter speed and ISO and determining when using Aperture priority mode is good enough, and when it is much better to just use Manual mode.  

We concluded the lesson with me giving Kasia some lens buying advice.  I look forward to our second lesson once Kasia gets in a new lens next week.

Canon T3 DSLR Photography Lesson 1-on-1 in St. Petersburg Florida with Monica

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Monica with her new Canon T3 during our DSLR Photography Lesson in downtown St. Petersburg North Straub ParkMonica's parents bought her a 2-hour DSLR Photography Lesson gift certificate for Christmas which she used for our first lesson this evening.  She has a Canon T3 along with a trio of lenses:  Canon 18-55mm, Canon 55-250mm, Canon 50mm f/1.8.  We had a chance to practice using all three during our lesson in donwtown St. Petersburg, along with her tripod.  

Monica had a lot of photography knowledge already from self-study, reading photography websites, etc.  During our lesson I helped her organize that knowledge into practical ways of making a variety of different photographs from single subject shallow depth of focus images to bird-in-flight shots to natural light golden hour portraits.  Our lesson was for sure one of the most information and gear packed 2-hours I have ever taught!

We ended the lesson using her Canon T3 on her tripod to make light trail shots of the little traffic that cruises down Beach Drive on a Monday night.  I expect Monica to be able to quickly build on all we covered in our first lesson and begin to be able to "self-teach" herself.  I look forward to seeing the results.

Nikon D5100 DSLR Photography Lesson with Joe in St. Petersburg Florida

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Joe with his new Nikon D5100 during our photography lesson in downtown St. Petersburg, FloridaOn a beautiful March afternoon in St. Petersburg I met Joe and his new Nikon D5100 for our first DSLR Photography Lesson.  He had previously owned a Nikon D40 and also had film SLR experience.  During our lesson he wanted to convert some of that past knowledge into the DSLR world, along with what I could show him from my years of experience using Nikon DSLRs.  Sometimes small things like just showing how to move the focus point from the center to anywhere in the frame can really help out.  My experience with virtually every DSLR made in the past four years allows me to show people how to do practical things like moving focus points with their specific camera, part of the benefits of taking a 1-on-1 lesson.

Joe has an 18-55mm lens and a 55-200mm lens, the standard kit lenses.  For such lenses I told him that with the 18-55mm I would want to use f/11 as much as possible and for the 55-200mm f/5.6.  Often subject dictates lens, lens dictates aperture, and aperture is what I base all my other settings on.  In this way one can have a starting point for making a well exposed and properly focused image.

We ended the lesson with using Joe's 20-year old speedlight, which amazingly worked just fine mounted on the D5100's hotshoe.  Using the speedlight in a neutral light setting the benefits of having fill light, even on camera, could be seen.  

I look forward to seeing Joe's photos from his Nikon D5100 as he continues his DSLR shooting skills.

Nikon D5100 DSLR Photography Lesson with Debbie in St. Petersburg Florida

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Debbie with her new Nikon D5100 during our photography lesson in St. Petersburg FloridaIt was on a crisp and sunny President's Day I met Debbie with her new Nikon D5100 for our first DSLR Photography Lesson together in downtown St. Petersburg.  Debbie had a Fuji bridge camera before that she had extensive experience with photographing people.  However, she was mostly using it on auto-mode, and likewise, when she got the D5100 she was staying in auto-mode.  DSLRs do not work well at all in auto-mode, they like to be told what to do.  The very first goal during my 1-on-1 photography lessons is to get people off auto-mode and to start taking more control over their photographs.  

Even though Debbie already had photography knowledge, I added some organization to that with my 4-step method of getting the settings right for any given shot and also helping her just get familiar with changing those four things on her D5100.  We started out using aperture priority mode, but it did not take long to find the limits of using it in the harsh mid-day Florida sunlight.  Aperture priority mode was a good starting point for making a landscape shot of The Pier and Tampa Bay, but it was choosing too slow of a shutter speed.  By switching to manual mode and doubling the speed from 1/100th to 1/200th the results were much deeper blues in the sky, more details in the clouds and just an overall more dynamic image.  That is the power of taking control of your DSLR.

Debbie gets to travel often for her work, giving her lots of different photography opportunities.  I look forward to seeing her images taken in aperture and manual modes!