9 Month Thanksgiving Turkey!

[Juga]

At the request of some really close friends I did 9 month photos for their little boy. Looking for C&C on all aspects; exposure, pose, processing…etc. Thanks in advance for any feedback!
1
2
I chopped off the hand…ops!
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4

 

[frommrstomommy]

I think they look great! Wish there were more variation.. step back some for some and clipped hands in 2. Otherwise they look nice, crisp, clear, color looks good to me (though this monitor is really not reliable usually lol).

 

[Juga]

Thanks Bonnie.

Also wanted to mention that I intend on going back and 'fixing' the scratches near his left eye.

 

[mmaria]

ok, here we go...

first, I'm looking these images on a crappy monitor at work so can't comment about processing

What settings did you use?

#1 #3 too shallow dof, one eye oof. also non flattering cropping or pose. With this pose (if we can say "posing" with a 9 months old ) it would be better if his whole body was in the frame
#2 the best. cropped hand but parents wont notice that. again focus issues
#4 he is afraid of the camera lol. parents would love his expression. but again, crop is not nice


could you do this again? would the parents mind? would you this again?
maybe you'll get some advises here and be better next time? I know I could say something if you want... but first I would like to know how was this experience for you? It's not easy to take photos of a 9 month old

 

[Juga]

ok, here we go...

first, I'm looking these images on a crappy monitor at work so can't comment about processing

What settings did you use?

#1 #3 too shallow dof, one eye oof. also non flattering cropping or pose. With this pose (if we can say "posing" with a 9 months old ) it would be better if his whole body was in the frame
#2 the best. cropped hand but parents wont notice that. again focus issues
#4 he is afraid of the camera lol. parents would love his expression. but again, crop is not nice


could you do this again? would the parents mind? would you this again?
maybe you'll get some advises here and be better next time? I know I could say something if you want... but first I would like to know how was this experience for you? It's not easy to take photos of a 9 month old

I or the parents definitely wouldn't mind but life this time of year is crazy and I don't think I will get another chance until his 1 year pictures. I have three little ones running around so I get what you are saying about 'posing' a 9 month old. . This was my first time doing indoor shots, other than snapshots, and I found it to be very difficult because I don't have a ton of artificial lighting available to me. So most of these shots were at ISO 3200-6400 because lighting sucked and all the while shooting wide open or with a thing DOF. I am open to any feedback! Thanks!

 

[Braineack]

I agree with the DOF issue. #2 is the best of the lot but still has flaws as mentioned. The rest seems too tightly framed/cropped, even #2.

See what happens if you do full body shots, you can always crop in from there. I'm sure Mish or someone could teach you how to do body shots

I'd definitely try again using your 430EX (you could bounce off that same window wall) and closing the aperture a bit, and stepping back a little.

 

[mmaria]

Those problems you encountered are really happening to everyone and I could recognize myself in your photos.

I have a 3 year old and an 18 months old, and had to practice with dof.
It's very tricky to shoot kids with a small f number. You can do it with babies, because they don't move, but with playing kids and when you're so close to them, is very hard thing to pull of. They're fast with their body, head movements and they're hard to follow. Try with 4 or 5.6 when you're so close to kid or you can choose that small aperture but you'll need to back of from kid, that would give you more dof. If you back of and let him play and relax, you could shoot him and after crop the surrounding.

With shutter speed don't go under 160, you might get away with 125 but 160 is better

With those settings you mentioned, ISO is very high, you shot wide open, and with 6D, I can only presume that it was a very cloudy overcast day.

You have some nice equipment, enough for shooting indoors I think, you don't need any artificial lights (although others will disagree, my personal preference is available light )
... you do need to think how you're going to use that available light and how to make it works for you.
You can use almost anything to practice how to use your available light, with your window.
Place a doll or something and shoot that. Analyze the quality of the light that falls on the doll. Is it harsh-maybe some curtains will help, maybe the doll was too close/far away from the window? Do you and where do you need a reflector? what do you mind in the background?

That practice will help you a lot, may sound silly but it will help. You'll now where is the best spot to place a child, where would you stand, where is the best direction for him to go and then act according to that. Get to know your environment, how light is changing in the house depending on the the time of the day.

And the last and the most important thing when you shoot kids is that you have to be a fool when shooting kids! really! if you do everything right and get nothing in their eyes or expression, then you didn't succeed. Make some funny noises, faces, anything will do just to catch a smile or some cute expression.

It's much easier with grown ups when you get to tell them what to do, it's not that easy with children, you can't tell them, you have to act in some ways in order to get them to do what you want them to do...grrr, my English, hope you understood!

I probably forget something to say, but have to go now. Good luck!

 

[Juga]

That doesn't sound silly and yes it was extremely cloudy out. Not a lot of windows so I used my speed light on a stand with a 24" soft box for a catch light. I will get another chance down the road and continue to learn. Thanks for the tips!

 

[Derrel]

I downloaded and looked at #2 in a large version...pretty good image quality for such a high ISO level. The lighting looks pretty decent, really, and the color is good too--nice whites, skin tones look good, colors look pretty good too. Yes, the hand is cut off...maybe you're shooting a bit too tight...I suspect so. Yeah, it's nice to fill the frame, but with a new ,modern d-slr on a close-range shot, you're putting the pixels on a pretty doggone small roof, to mic metaphors....you've got three truckloads of shingles and need to cover only one smallish roof, ya' know?

I'm a bit confused about the way you integrated the speedlight + softbox into this shoot. It looks to me as if the background exposure is being provides almost totally by the wide aperture of f/2.8 and the slowish shutter speed of 1/125 at ISO 4000; and then, the flash is not really providing much of the exposure at all, but is only there as a catchlight provider, and maybe as a tiny bit of fill. Is that right? That's what I am guessing, just from shot #2 and from loooking at the backgrounds, it seems liker they are made bright by, in effect, a HIGH-High ISO + a moderate speed + a wide f/stop.

 

[Braineack]

yeah I thought these were natural light and the catch-light was a window...

 

[Juga]

I downloaded and looked at #2 in a large version...pretty good image quality for such a high ISO level. The lighting looks pretty decent, really, and the color is good too--nice whites, skin tones look good, colors look pretty good too. Yes, the hand is cut off...maybe you're shooting a bit too tight...I suspect so. Yeah, it's nice to fill the frame, but with a new ,modern d-slr on a close-range shot, you're putting the pixels on a pretty doggone small roof, to mic metaphors....you've got three truckloads of shingles and need to cover only one smallish roof, ya' know?

I'm a bit confused about the way you integrated the speedlight + softbox into this shoot. It looks to me as if the background exposure is being provides almost totally by the wide aperture of f/2.8 and the slowish shutter speed of 1/125 at ISO 4000; and then, the flash is not really providing much of the exposure at all, but is only there as a catchlight provider, and maybe as a tiny bit of fill. Is that right? That's what I am guessing, just from shot #2 and from loooking at the backgrounds, it seems liker they are made bright by, in effect, a HIGH-High ISO + a moderate speed + a wide f/stop.

Thanks for jumping in on this one Derrel. I will have to add the some examples tomorrow but there was a small window camera right over his left shoulder. I went into this thinking that I would do just natural window light but what I got was garbage. It was raining and late in the afternoon so the light was leaving too quick. So I used 1/125 because he wasn't moving all too quickly but I didn't want camera shake but just enough so I can shoot wider which brings me to the f/2.8 and the high ISO. So I tried with and without my flash and the eyes were much too dark and the lighting looked horrible so with the flash my goal was to 'mimic' natural light. Framing...I am still really working hard on this one...noob issue with either leaving too much space or not enough and cropping limbs and such. Overall I refuse to quit and will continue to work at it. I have one of those Time-Life books on studio work so I will have to drive into that.

yeah I thought these were natural light and the catch-light was a window...

Thanks that actually is what I was going for.

 

[Derrel]

I think this is a very interesting and possibly instructive scenario; the amount of flash exposure and the amount of ambient light exposure are blended almost seamlessly, perfectly. It LOOKS like really good flash work, or really good natural light + flash-fill work, or really well-done natural light work, like from an old north light studio.

This is probably a situation where looking at the "bad" frames, the ones done with no flash, would be very instructive. The background brightness in #2, versus the foreground brightness in #2, for example, would be one thing to look at. But I also think like you mentioned, without flash, his eyes would look dull and colorless without the flash as a source of what I call "eye-sparkle".

Another thing is that using flash in a modifier at such an elevated ISO and wide f/stop makes even a small flash pop a POWERFUL light source!

I'm just sort of thinking out loud here, because as I mentioned this is an instructive scenario. Using flash to provide fill-ill and eye-sparkle also keeps noise sublimated pretty well...noise shows up worst in underexposed areas, and there are no under-exposed areas in any of these. In a way, this is something like what noted wedding pro Denis Reggie refers to as "foofing", which is shooting bounced flash off of walls and ceilings and using really HIGH ISO values and wide f/stops to create a very natural-looking lighting that does not look to be obvious, bald-faced "flash work".

I think this exact scenario you ran into is, for the third time, "very instructive". You can learn as much from the bad exposures as from the good ones I think. This is also another example of how ignoring that dumb internet advice to "shoot at low ISO" payed off hugely.

 

[Juga]

I'm just sort of thinking out loud here, because as I mentioned this is an instructive scenario. Using flash to provide fill-ill and eye-sparkle also keeps noise sublimated pretty well...noise shows up worst in underexposed areas, and there are no under-exposed areas in any of these. In a way, this is something like what noted wedding pro Denis Reggie refers to as "foofing", which is shooting bounced flash off of walls and ceilings and using really HIGH ISO values and wide f/stops to create a very natural-looking lighting that does not look to be obvious, bald-faced "flash work".

I knew that if I could 'overexpose' a bit then I could back the exposure down in post and the noise wouldn't be as noticable. At least this is something that I have seen before so far.

These are definitely not perfect because of my framing issues but that is something I continue to struggle with. One of the first points of feedback you actually gave me many months ago was that I was leaving too much space in the frame so since then I try to frame closer but now just trying to find that happy spot through the view finder.

I will post some of the originals SOOC tomorrow evening.