DSLR Photography Lesson with Alok & his Canon 60D

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.  

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50mm DSLR Photography Lesson at a St. Petersburg Florida Marina

Pam showing very good portrait orientation holding technique with her Canon 60D during our 7th photography lesson!For our seventh DSLR Photography Lesson I met Pam in the usual downtown St. Petersburg spot, but thanks to her mother-in-law, who has a sailboat docked at a nearby marina, we were able to shoot from a unique spot on the southern waterfront area.  A huge thunderstorm also passed harmlessly by at the start of the lesson, leaving us free to explore new shooting locations among the long and narrow piers of the marina.  

This was a 50mm only lesson, and Pam kept it secret from me that she upgraded her Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens for a Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens since our last 50mm only lesson!!  When a student gets new gear for me it is almost as exciting as if I got some new gear myself!  Pam wanted a 50mm lens with better build quality, which the Canon 50mm f/1.4 provides with a metal housing and an silent focusing motor.

A unique vantage point for photographing the new Dali Museum - Pam with her Canon 60DThe marina provided unique views of both The Pier and the new Salvador Dali Museum.  The setting sun had plenty of clouds around it producing great dusk light for us to photograph both of them in.  Pam now has all the photography gear she needs to produce the shots she wants and during our thirteenth and fourteenth hours of instruction she is beginning to understand and realize the settings she needs to change in order to correct exposure mistakes, while developing her own composition style.  

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DSLR Photography Lesson Night Tripod Instruction with Pam & her Canon 60D

The top of The Pier offers a great vantage point for a sunset to twilight DSLR Photography Lesson in St. PetersburgFor our sixth DSLR Photography Lesson I met Pam at the usual spot in downtown St. Petersburg, each of us with DSLR, tripod and cable release in tow for practicing twilight and night photography.  I finally was able to figure out how to unlock the focus point in her Canon 60D viewfinder without having to go inconviently into the menus to do so.  Pam said, "I just learned something new."  She then said how her mother told her that if she learns at least one new thing each lesson, then it's worth it.  I thought to myself, "hmm, $75 to learn how to move the focus point!"  Of course though we did practice and hopefully learn a lot more over the course of the 2-hour lesson.

Being able to easily move the single focus point throughtout the frame in the viewfinder is especially useful when working with a tripod.  Once you frame the shot how you want it, the best place to set the focus may not be the dead center.  So instead of having to set the focus and recompose again, just being able to direct the focus point to the ideal location for a given shot in the viewfinder is a huge advantage.  Deep in the settings menus of her Canon 60D we found the ability to unlock the focus points.  Many other cameras have a dedicated button on the back to lock or unlock the focus point.  Check your manual if it is not intuitive for how to move your focus point with the D-pad on the back of your DSLR.  

For once Pam and I also did not have to dodge any passing thunderstorms and The Pier was surprisingly free of people for a Thursday night.  We photographed in peace from dusk to nightfall using manual mode to get the exact exposure we wanted.  One time, to Pam's delight, several cars drove down the causeway to The Pier allowing her to get light streaks in her long exposure shot.  

For our seventh lesson, we will return to using our 50mm f/1.8 lenses starting out in a bakery Pam has raved about.  Hopefully they will have some free samples!

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DSLR Photography Lesson using Canon 70-200mm f/4 at The Pier St. Petersburg

The front element of Pam's new Canon 70-200mm f/4 IS lens at the end of our evening lesson at The Pier in St. PetersburgThis evening Pam and I dodged rain and humidity in pursuit of photographing pelicans in flight at The Pier using her new Canon 70-200mm f/4 IS L lens.  This was also the first lesson of the second four pack of DSLR Photography Lessons Pam has reserved.  

We met in downtown St. Petersburg and made our way on foot out to The Pier where along the way we got our settings for photographing moving subjects dialed in.  Due to the overcast skies, light was already fading two hours before sunset, so we immediately went into manual mode setting the shutter speed at 1/800th of a second to insure we could freeze gliding pelicans.  To compensate for this fast shutter speed Pam needed to use the max aperture setting of f/4 for her lens, along with ISOs that eventually topped out at 1600 by lesson's end!

The pelicans always seemed to stay 50 meters ahead of us, but eventually we were able to photograph some in flight.  I taught Pam my tracking technique which is not an easy thing to pick up on if you are not used to using your lens as a scope and then quickly ducking your eye into the viewfinder, all the while trying to get a focus lock on a small, rapidly moving subject.  However, Pam now knows the technique and can practice it on her own before our next lesson next week.

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

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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50mm DSLR Photography Lesson with Pam & her Canon 60D

50mm lenses are by far the most fun for the money in the DSLR worldMy third of four lessons with Pam was a 50mm lens only DSLR Photography Lesson.  If you do not have a 50mm lens yourself, well, get on Amazon or BH Photo and order one immediately as they are the cheapest lens made, but also one of the most fun to use.  It is very, very rare in the DSLR photography world to get a great piece of gear for under $150, but that's just what you get with a 50mm f/1.8 lens.  There is no better value for money in photography, not even close.  

50mm lenses are great at easily producing bokeh since they have such large apertures.  What I told Pam at the beginning of the lesson was that it is no skill to produce bokeh using a 50mm lens, but there is a big difference in quality of bokeh depending on what the background elements of the shot are.  What works really well?  A string of lights works great.  In the above photo trees in a park along the St. Petersburg waterfront are decorated with strings of white-blue lights.  I set the focus on Pam intending to make the lights of the trees into round glowing bokeh orbs.  No flash was used and I handheld the shot.  That is the power of the 50mm f/1.8 lens!

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Tripod DSLR Photography Lesson with Pam in St. Petersburg Florida

Pam using her Canon 60D with Canon 10-22mm ultrawide angle lens on her tripod in downtown St. PetersburgAs you can see, for our second of four DSLR Photography Lessons, Pam was not afraid of getting into the thick of the concrete jungle to get a shot.  This evening's lesson focused on using a tripod to compose architecture shots.  We mostly photographed the skyscraper condos of downtown St. Petersburg before ending along the waterfront.  

I showed Pam a few tripod basics, like making sure the front of your lens points over one of the three legs of the tripod (for extra stability) and that if you do not need your tripod's full height, you should use only the upper portions of the legs, leaving the thin (and less stable) legs unextended.  When using a tripod I also recommend using a cable release, which Pam has, so as to avoid any shake from your finger pressing (and shaking) the shutter release button.  

It was a bit of a learning experience for me as well helping Pam compose shots with her ultra-wide Canon 10-22mm lens, as I do not own a similar lens and no past student has either.  One really has to think, "I am going to shoot wide, and only wide," as even at 22mm everything still looks wide in the frame.  My next gear purchase though, besides a Spider Belt, will be an ultra-wide angle lens, probably the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 as several friends have it and love it and I have not heard anything but praise for that lens.

For our third lesson next week Pam and I will be using 50mm f/1.8 lenses exclusively.

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