Oly e500 : Photograph pregnant wife - please help

[Cooler_King]

Hey all,

My wife is about to give birth in about 2 weeks. She is quite keen for me to take some soft, tasteful shots of her and the bump before we lose the chance for ever.

Unfortunately I don't think I am a good enough photographer to do the scene justice. I have had a some success with outdoor/landscapes but my portraits/close ups are just terrible.

I am using the kit lens (. I was thinking of several close ups of the bump itself, softly lit using f/ 2.5 through f/ 4.0 to as to suitably blur the surrounding bedside.

How would you guys should the scene? Any and all suggestions welcome. The overhead lighting in the house is quite dim due to heavy frosted glass lampshades. Our bedroom has quite large windows which allow light to stream onto the bed in the mornings.

Thanks all

 

[Derrel]

Well, a tripod would be helpful. A slow shutter speed at ISO 400 to 640 + some additional light from a flash bounced off of the ceiling or a wall in the room would allow you a number of good,creative photos. Surely you can manage to make a good photo or two. I do think that a touch of fill lighting from diffused flash is useful, OR you can use flash as the main light, and use light coming in from the windows as fill-in lighting if the camera is steady and the shutter speeds are slow enough to capture the ambient light. With the right match of shutter speed/aperture/ISO and the right flash to daylight ratio, the effect of using flash is almost imperceptible. planetneil.com has some good instructions you might find useful.

The bathtub is another good option....a bubble bath, or colored water from some bath salts + bounced flash could be very tasteful; I photographed my wife in the bathtub using some green-colored bath salts, and the "bump" photographed quite well. The contrast of the colored water against skin was pretty interesting.

 

[Cooler_King]

Well, a tripod would be helpful. A slow shutter speed at ISO 400 to 640 + some additional light from a flash bounced off of the ceiling or a wall in the room would allow you a number of good,creative photos. Surely you can manage to make a good photo or two. I do think that a touch of fill lighting from flash is useful, OR you can use flash as the main light, and use light coming in from the windows as fill-in lighting if the camera is steady and the shutter speeds are slow enough to capture the ambient light.

The bathtub is another good option....a bubble bath, or colored water from some bath salts + bounced flash could be very tasteful; I photographed my wife in the bathtub using some green-colored bath salts, and the "bump" photographed quite well. The contrast of the colored water against skin was pretty interesting.

Sorry I should have mentioned it - I do have a tripod and will be using it.

ISO 400 to 640? Thanks for that :thumbup:

Bathtub as well. I hadn't considered that. Don't get me wrong I could take some half-decent photos but I really want to excel with this subject.