Bridal...Sort of...

[FITBMX]

Or drinking water from a garden hose on full blast.

Now that's fun!!!

 

[FITBMX]

Spot focus Aiming at f/1.8 and then recomposing normally doesn't work unless the spot you focused on AND the spot you want in focus are in the EXACT same focus plane.

Also, to get better sharp photos you need to have a faster shutter speed.

Learn to shoot in Manual where you can select the Aperture AND Shutter speed that you need for the shot rather than hoping the camera can figure out what you really want.
Set your ISO to AUTO with a max that you are comfortable with. And shoot away. If there are issues then compensate your settings to get the shot.

I know a lot of people swear by Aperture or Shutter Priority but I prefer Manual so that I know the correct Aperture and the correct Shutter are being used.

Btw, I hope you have already printed those photos, framed them and hung them up in your house .. they're adorable.

I always shoot in full manual, including focus. I think it is a good idea to learn how to shoot like this, it makes you learn how to truly understand your camera. At least that's what it did for me.

 

[Shades of Blue]

Yes, your struggles here are prety well-understood. For example a blue-tinted white dress result is the exact, direct, and totally expected fault of using a tungsten WB setting to get the minilights looking white....to cancel out that unpleasant blue skin tone in the foreground areas lit by the flash, you need a fairly orange-hued filter to correct the flash's light's color temperature value: the cheapest, easiest thing to do is to go to a pawnshop and buy something like an orange, 85B filter in 72mm size, and literally cellophane tape that filter over the speedlight's Fresnel lens.

The issue is made significant by the f/1.8 aperture and the ISO 320 combo...at that high an ISO, and at that wide an aperture, and at a shutter time of 1/60 second, ANY ambient lighting will easily register on the sensor. So, that exposure "triangle" creates a pretty strong, let's call it the base-level exposure....the f/1.8 aperture, at ISO 320, and a moderate speed like 1/60, collects a huge percentage of the ambient light from the mini-lights. That light tends to look warm witht he WB set to 5,000-5,500 Kelvin, and yellowish....so, to correct that, you adjust the White Balance to a lower number value, say 2,900 to 3,200 Kelvin. But thennnnnnnn, if you fire "cooler", 5,500 Degrees Kelvin or "daylight white" electronic flash at her.... she and her dress turn blue...very blue.

This is actually a very common issue whenever mixing artificial lights of many types, with electronic flash or strong daylight.

At wide f/stops, and at elevated ISO levels, and with low-powered flash, the clash of color temps is very obvious. A small flash pop doesn't carry very far, and at f/1.8, you can literally see the way the orange-colored light creeps in at the bottom of the dress, but the face and chest areas show the dress as white-white...

You're kind of right...this is a tricky situation, with multiple light sources, of different color temperatures, and white fabric and a base-level exposure that collects a LOT of light from ambient sources AND which also needs/allows only a very tiny bit of flash!

My experience in this is that the easiest solution is to use a telephoto lens, and to try and separate the background lights from the subject, so there's a physical "gulf" between the two light sources; see how the yellow light creep in, and wraps around the bottom of her dress? That's because that light, that ambient light is actually, physically falling on HER dress!

The issue is that f/1.8 at ISO 320 and 1/60 second causes diffuse ambient light to register easily; the mini-light bulb, the bulbs themselves, shine light on to where she is seated. Tungsten White Balance on-camera, then orange-gelled electronic flash on the subject is the basic strategy here. but there is no one proper, final way to balance these things, as your final image processing shows; you might want a warmer look than what is mathematically "correct", since warm skin and warm whites are associated with sunny, happy feelings. Blue-tinged things are cooler, colder, less-happy, so the blue skin hues you corrected by making adjustments is a really good decision you made!

Thank you for taking the time to post that! I've learned more about photography in 2-3 weeks here than I did in my photography class in college! The difference is practice. We didn't get a lot of that in school, nor practical experience. I was an introduction class and we spent more time learning about style and history than we did about how modern cameras work.

Photography has always been a hobby at best, but I've taken a real interest in it as I take more photos of my daughter. People have approached me about taking photos of their kids and families and it is sort of taking off from there. I'm trying to learn as much as I can and soak it up like sponge. I'm really enjoying it. I used to do drawings and paintings for people as gifts, but this is much more interesting to me and honestly more rewarding.

 

[Shades of Blue]

Spot focus Aiming at f/1.8 and then recomposing normally doesn't work unless the spot you focused on AND the spot you want in focus are in the EXACT same focus plane.

Also, to get better sharp photos you need to have a faster shutter speed.

Learn to shoot in Manual where you can select the Aperture AND Shutter speed that you need for the shot rather than hoping the camera can figure out what you really want.
Set your ISO to AUTO with a max that you are comfortable with. And shoot away. If there are issues then compensate your settings to get the shot.

I know a lot of people swear by Aperture or Shutter Priority but I prefer Manual so that I know the correct Aperture and the correct Shutter are being used.

Btw, I hope you have already printed those photos, framed them and hung them up in your house .. they're adorable.

I always shoot in full manual, including focus. I think it is a good idea to learn how to shoot like this, it makes you learn how to truly understand your camera. At least that's what it did for me.

I have no doubt I'll be using manual mode in the not to distant future. I actually have been using it pretty much anytime I practice, but just didn't use it for this shoot because the aperture mode looked pretty good at first when I began. Total shoot lasted about 20 minutes and was just for fun during the rainy weather. Photos turned out better and worse than I'd hoped for. Better in the sense that I think they are really nice as a whole, but worse in the fact that I'm kicking myself for the wide open aperture. I made an "artistic" choice that looked good on the screen, but backfired when I saw the fuzzy focus in the photos in editing.

 

[astroNikon]

Spot focus Aiming at f/1.8 and then recomposing normally doesn't work unless the spot you focused on AND the spot you want in focus are in the EXACT same focus plane.

Also, to get better sharp photos you need to have a faster shutter speed.

Learn to shoot in Manual where you can select the Aperture AND Shutter speed that you need for the shot rather than hoping the camera can figure out what you really want.
Set your ISO to AUTO with a max that you are comfortable with. And shoot away. If there are issues then compensate your settings to get the shot.

I know a lot of people swear by Aperture or Shutter Priority but I prefer Manual so that I know the correct Aperture and the correct Shutter are being used.

Btw, I hope you have already printed those photos, framed them and hung them up in your house .. they're adorable.

I always shoot in full manual, including focus. I think it is a good idea to learn how to shoot like this, it makes you learn how to truly understand your camera. At least that's what it did for me.

I have no doubt I'll be using manual mode in the not to distant future. I actually have been using it pretty much anytime I practice, but just didn't use it for this shoot because the aperture mode looked pretty good at first when I began. Total shoot lasted about 20 minutes and was just for fun during the rainy weather. Photos turned out better and worse than I'd hoped for. Better in the sense that I think they are really nice as a whole, but worse in the fact that I'm kicking myself for the wide open aperture. I made an "artist" choice that looked good on the screen, but backfired when I saw the fuzzy focus in the photos in editing.

Every time I use Aperture or Shutter mode I end up regretting it. A faster more educated guess on A/S would be better than letting the camera make a guess. The camera doesn't know the scene or what is happening in the scene. I've found being in Manual with AUTO ISO w/max to be my "auto" mode as I get the DOF and shutter speed needed. It just takes a few more seconds to balance out the exposure looking at the meter than regretting it later. Of course, there are people that swear by Aperture/Shutter priority too. So YMMV.

You also have your DOF preview button on the front of the camera .. I keep forgetting about that but need to test it more to understand it.

 

[Shades of Blue]

Spot focus Aiming at f/1.8 and then recomposing normally doesn't work unless the spot you focused on AND the spot you want in focus are in the EXACT same focus plane.

Also, to get better sharp photos you need to have a faster shutter speed.

Learn to shoot in Manual where you can select the Aperture AND Shutter speed that you need for the shot rather than hoping the camera can figure out what you really want.
Set your ISO to AUTO with a max that you are comfortable with. And shoot away. If there are issues then compensate your settings to get the shot.

I know a lot of people swear by Aperture or Shutter Priority but I prefer Manual so that I know the correct Aperture and the correct Shutter are being used.

Btw, I hope you have already printed those photos, framed them and hung them up in your house .. they're adorable.

I always shoot in full manual, including focus. I think it is a good idea to learn how to shoot like this, it makes you learn how to truly understand your camera. At least that's what it did for me.

I have no doubt I'll be using manual mode in the not to distant future. I actually have been using it pretty much anytime I practice, but just didn't use it for this shoot because the aperture mode looked pretty good at first when I began. Total shoot lasted about 20 minutes and was just for fun during the rainy weather. Photos turned out better and worse than I'd hoped for. Better in the sense that I think they are really nice as a whole, but worse in the fact that I'm kicking myself for the wide open aperture. I made an "artist" choice that looked good on the screen, but backfired when I saw the fuzzy focus in the photos in editing.

Every time I use Aperture or Shutter mode I end up regretting it. A faster more educated guess on A/S would be better than letting the camera make a guess. The camera doesn't know the scene or what is happening in the scene. I've found being in Manual with AUTO ISO w/max to be my "auto" mode as I get the DOF and shutter speed needed. It just takes a few more seconds to balance out the exposure looking at the meter than regretting it later. Of course, there are people that swear by Aperture/Shutter priority too. So YMMV.

...

My D5000 doesn't have a DOF preview button on the front of the camera

Also, should I be shooting in RAW, or RAW+JPEG. I assumed I can just save as a JPEG for uploading to the internet later.

 

[astroNikon]

I used to do RAW + JPEG for a short time. Now only RAW. sometimes I shoot in JPEG just mostly test shots or stuff I'm selling online that I really don't want to process.

 

[FITBMX]

I used to do RAW + JPEG for a short time. Now only RAW. sometimes I shoot in JPEG just mostly test shots or stuff I'm selling online that I really don't want to process.

I stopped using JPEG because I kept forgetting to switch it back to RAW.

 

[FITBMX]

I'm kicking myself for the wide open aperture

You are lucky that you still have the dress and the your little girl (of which is as cute as a button! )so you can just reshoot, not a big deal.

 

[Shades of Blue]

I'm kicking myself for the wide open aperture

You are lucky that you still have the dress and the your little girl (of which is as cute as a button! )so you can just reshoot, not a big deal.

Thank you very much! My wife is happy enough with them (and really I am too). I don't think my daughter would be as accommodating for a second try haha. She started really getting aggravated towards the end with the size of the dress and the itchiness! Even though I missed the focus a bit, it's close enough for us for what these are taken for. Good learning opportunity for my second client shoot this weekend!

 

[FITBMX]

Good learning opportunity for my second client shoot this weekend!

Good luck!