Baby Shower Photography

[PhotogNewbie735]

Hey guys! I'm a beginner in photography and I am self-learning along with getting advice from photographers I come across.

My cousin has a baby shower this weekend & I will practice my "event photography" skills at her event to gain experience & hopefully make money from this one day.



Any advice or tips?? Thanks!!

P.S. I have a Canon Rebel t6


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[photo1x1.com]

Hi there and welcome to the forum.
How much do you know about aperture, shutter speed and ISO to start with? What lenses do you have?
A lot will depend on whether this event will be indoor or outdoor (and your location looking at the temperatures ). If you are outdoor, you can live without flash, but if you are indoors, you´d very likely need a flash.

 

[PhotogNewbie735]

Thank you for responding! [emoji2] I know a pretty decent amount about ISO, aperture, & shutter speed. I've been picking my photography friends brains & watching a lot of YouTube videos lol but I am completely opening to knowing more or relearning if you have some tips!

I have Canon EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS

The event will be indoors and I was told to use my external flash rather than the camera's flash.


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[PhotogNewbie735]

Also, I don't plan to do much editing since I'm still learning to get a good shoot to begin with so I was told to use jpeg but some say use RAW. Which do you recommend?


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[tirediron]

Shoot in RAW+JPG. That gives you the best of both worlds; an image you can post right out of the camera if you're happy with, plus all the benefits of the raw file to work with if and when you want to tackle the post-processing. Nothing worse than having a great image in .jpg only that just needs that little extra you can't get out of a lossy file format.

 

[Designer]

.. I was told to use jpeg but some say use RAW. Which do you recommend?

I usually shoot both. Some folks say the JPG is a waste of memory capacity, but I have a lot of capacity, so no biggie. If the JPG looks good, then I don't need to edit the Raw, but I save them for future use if I ever need them.

I'm glad to hear you have a flash, so my only suggestion is to get it off your camera. A shower is slow enough that you can get set up before the main action. Your speedlight with a large diffuser on a light stand will be a good thing. Alternatively, you can keep it in the hotshoe and turn the head to bounce the light off a wall, or ceiling, or some other white reflector. If the walls and ceiling are white, then I would keep it on the camera so I could move around the room, swiveling the head as I go.

If the walls and ceiling are some color, then you will be glad you're capturing the Raw file, because then you can adjust the WB in post.

Speaking of minimal editing, you don't have to edit each and every shot, just the good ones. At a minimum, I would straighten, crop, adjust the white balance, and sharpen. Should take about one minute per shot. Don't live stream the shots to FB or some other SM site. Take your time, promise them the next day, and don't show any bad shots.

If you're being paid, NEVER show any bad shots. The clients can wait one day for your edits.

 

[PhotogNewbie735]

.. I was told to use jpeg but some say use RAW. Which do you recommend?

I usually shoot both. Some folks say the JPG is a waste of memory capacity, but I have a lot of capacity, so no biggie. If the JPG looks good, then I don't need to edit the Raw, but I save them for future use if I ever need them.

I'm glad to hear you have a flash, so my only suggestion is to get it off your camera. A shower is slow enough that you can get set up before the main action. Your speedlight with a large diffuser on a light stand will be a good thing. Alternatively, you can keep it in the hotshoe and turn the head to bounce the light off a wall, or ceiling, or some other white reflector. If the walls and ceiling are white, then I would keep it on the camera so I could move around the room, swiveling the head as I go.

If the walls and ceiling are some color, then you will be glad you're capturing the Raw file, because then you can adjust the WB in post.

Speaking of minimal editing, you don't have to edit each and every shot, just the good ones. At a minimum, I would straighten, crop, adjust the white balance, and sharpen. Should take about one minute per shot. Don't live stream the shots to FB or some other SM site. Take your time, promise them the next day, and don't show any bad shots.

If you're being paid, NEVER show any bad shots. The clients can wait one day for your edits.

Thank you so much for responding !! I just learned something new about pointing the flash away from the subject. I hadn't heard that yet. My question would be does that create a more natural look than a flash being on the subject?


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[PhotogNewbie735]

Shoot in RAW+JPG. That gives you the best of both worlds; an image you can post right out of the camera if you're happy with, plus all the benefits of the raw file to work with if and when you want to tackle the post-processing. Nothing worse than having a great image in .jpg only that just needs that little extra you can't get out of a lossy file format.

Thank you!! I was originally shoot in RAW + jpeg but someone told me it takes up a lot of space but I have a lot of storage so you're right it wouldn't matter. I will continue with both. Thanks! [emoji16]


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[Derrel]

Shoot in RAW+JPG. That gives you the best of both worlds; an image you can post right out of the camera if you're happy with, plus all the benefits of the raw file to work with if and when you want to tackle the post-processing. Nothing worse than having a great image in .jpg only that just needs that little extra you can't get out of a lossy file format.

One thing about Canon in RAW+JPG mode: it has a GORGEOUS option, for Sepia under Color Toning; it has an option for YELLOW filter under Filter Effects; and it has options for the Image Sharpening, and the tone curve (degree of contrast applied to the image data), plus Image Compression, and Image Size. All in all, Canon has a fantastic, lovely RAW + JPEG set-up for B&W images. Sepia-toned, yellow-filtered, Moderately High Tone Curve or Auto, High sharpening, and Medium-sized, Fine-compression images from a Canon d-slr will look amazing!

This RAW+JPG mode gives the gorgeous B&W JOPEG images, and it delivers FULL-COLOR .CR2 files, so you can make a color JPEG as well, and have ALL the color data in the .CR2, but get ready-to-show, beautiful B&W images. Medium-sied is perfect from the 18-MP or 24_MP Canon captures: down-sizing from full-rez to medium-sized is still a BIG image, and it suppresses noise, a lot!

Of course, you could also shoot RAW+JPG, and do it in color as well.

Make sure to have a fresh,m spare set of AA batteries for the flash! Keep in mind: the higher the ISO set on the camera, the LESS flash power is used on each shot, and also, the higher the ISO, the brighter the backgrounds can appear at a given flash shutter speed. If the shutter is set to 1/160 second for flash shots, the backdrop will tend to be very DARK in a big hall;, or in the evening, or in a not-so-bright room. You might think about slowing the shutter speed down to 1/40 second,and moving to ISO of 400, or 500, to make background areas "lighten up" in comparison to the flash-lighted foregrounds.

Do some practrice shots the day before the event, and look at them on-computer.

 

[Designer]

Thank you so much for responding !! I just learned something new about pointing the flash away from the subject. I hadn't heard that yet. My question would be does that create a more natural look than a flash being on the subject?

Yes. A large reflecting surface will "soften" the light, making most shadows lighter or disappear altogether. As well; if the light comes from one side, it will produce "modeling light" which means the light will more naturally define the contours of someone's face. (and everything else)

That is by far the easiest and quickest method of modifying your flash that will produce acceptable results. You can swivel the head to a different wall in less time than it takes to read this.

 

[PhotogNewbie735]

Shoot in RAW+JPG. That gives you the best of both worlds; an image you can post right out of the camera if you're happy with, plus all the benefits of the raw file to work with if and when you want to tackle the post-processing. Nothing worse than having a great image in .jpg only that just needs that little extra you can't get out of a lossy file format.

One thing about Canon in RAW+JPG mode: it has a GORGEOUS option, for Sepia under Color Toning; it has an option for YELLOW filter under Filter Effects; and it has options for the Image Sharpening, and the tone curve (degree of contrast applied to the image data), plus Image Compression, and Image Size. All in all, Canon has a fantastic, lovely RAW + JPEG set-up for B&W images. Sepia-toned, yellow-filtered, Moderately High Tone Curve or Auto, High sharpening, and Medium-sized, Fine-compression images from a Canon d-slr will look amazing!

This RAW+JPG mode gives the gorgeous B&W JOPEG images, and it delivers FULL-COLOR .CR2 files, so you can make a color JPEG as well, and have ALL the color data in the .CR2, but get ready-to-show, beautiful B&W images. Medium-sied is perfect from the 18-MP or 24_MP Canon captures: down-sizing from full-rez to medium-sized is still a BIG image, and it suppresses noise, a lot!

Of course, you could also shoot RAW+JPG, and do it in color as well.

Make sure to have a fresh,m spare set of AA batteries for the flash! Keep in mind: the higher the ISO set on the camera, the LESS flash power is used on each shot, and also, the higher the ISO, the brighter the backgrounds can appear at a given flash shutter speed. If the shutter is set to 1/160 second for flash shots, the backdrop will tend to be very DARK in a big hall;, or in the evening, or in a not-so-bright room. You might think about slowing the shutter speed down to 1/40 second,and moving to ISO of 400, or 500, to make background areas "lighten up" in comparison to the flash-lighted foregrounds.

Do some practrice shots the day before the event, and look at them on-computer.

Ooh my gosh, you have no idea how much this has helped me!!!! I practice a little today at work & the ISO & shutter speeds you told me to use are spot on!! Thank you for breaking it down further! I feel like I now have a better understanding on when to you the filters & B&W & using both RAW & JPEG. You have been a great help! Thanks!

I'm debating if I should buy an online photography course from groupon so I can dive deeper into photography & know stuff like this or just stick to YouTube lol


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[PhotogNewbie735]

Thank you so much for responding !! I just learned something new about pointing the flash away from the subject. I hadn't heard that yet. My question would be does that create a more natural look than a flash being on the subject?

Yes. A large reflecting surface will "soften" the light, making most shadows lighter or disappear altogether. As well; if the light comes from one side, it will produce "modeling light" which means the light will more naturally define the contours of someone's face. (and everything else)

That is by far the easiest and quickest method of modifying your flash that will produce acceptable results. You can swivel the head to a different wall in less time than it takes to read this.

Thank you for the tip & explanation !!! I'm going to practice tonight!


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[photo1x1.com]

Great advice here!
One thing in regard to bounce flash: depending on the speedlight you have, there might be a bounce-card included that will reflect some of the light to the front. Use that, because it will give you a nice ratio of bounced light vs direct light.
If it is not included, it is very easy to create yourself. Take a piece of white cardboard or thin white plastic and a rubberband to fix it on your flashhead.
There are diffusers available too (you could even use a yoghurt cup as a DIY diffuser), but they give you less control. With the card you can easily increase the ratio of direct flash (vs. bonced flash) by pulling out the card from behind the flash, or decreasing it, by pushing it back. Usually less is more, so a small card will give you great results.

 

[PhotogNewbie735]

Great advice here!
One thing in regard to bounce flash: depending on the speedlight you have, there might be a bounce-card included that will reflect some of the light to the front. Use that, because it will give you a nice ratio of bounced light vs direct light.
If it is not included, it is very easy to create yourself. Take a piece of white cardboard or thin white plastic and a rubberband to fix it on your flashhead.
There are diffusers available too (you could even use a yoghurt cup as a DIY diffuser), but they give you less control. With the card you can easily increase the ratio of direct flash (vs. bonced flash) by pulling out the card from behind the flash, or decreasing it, by pushing it back. Usually less is more, so a small card will give you great results.

Thank you for the advice!!!! I will look to see if Amazon has one!!


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