My friend Tara and I finally planned a day to photograph just for fun and to practice all the stuff we want to practice without the pressure.

So, our first stop was Samy’s Camera in Pasadena.  We were pleasantly surprised at the service and knowledge of their sales peeps!  Specifically, Jason, in the back video room.  Turns out he’s a Canon guy that almost sold everything to turn Nikon when the D700 came out!  Crazy!  To summarize, Jason taught us a lot and was generous with his knowledge while not making us feel stupid!  🙂  We left not spending a penny, but with high hopes in purchasing our new dream camera, the D700!!!!

Soooo our day began with practicing Sunbursts.  Previously, I had never gotton those sharp spikes from the sun before, so now using F18-22 and ISO100, you too can acheive this look!

Secondly, I wanted to practice silouettes . . . sounds basic but I was admiring Jessica White’s relatively recent sillouette/sunset shots and wondered why I had never done it before!  🙂

Then it was onto using rear-sync flash with the on-camera flash.  This gives us the ability to keep the ambient light while lighting up the subject.  Jason was kind enough to show us this in lieu of purchasing a video light that we thought we needed!

Then our MAIN goal was to practice night photography . . . which we used the same technique as above.  We had to keep our shutter speed very slow but since we were using our flash, the subject remained sharp, without noise or blur.  🙂

Then in the middle of our day, we had to just have fun using the cool, urban looking backdrops!  Thanks Tara!

We learned  a lot and had a great time!  If anyone wants more details on this stuff, I can email you! 🙂