Cutie in polka dots!

[Sonoma]

I was asked to do some baby photos for a lovely young lady. I told her that I was by no means a professional(what ever that is?), but I would do my best. She posed the baby and I took the photos.

This photo is from a RAW file only having the exposure adjusted and adding some contrast. It was cropped too, to remove some distracting items in the background. Light sources were natural light from windows left and right and behind and hotshoe flash bounced off the ceiling(white). The camera was handheld, because I had no tripod with me, and was in manual mode.

The mother was happy with them, but I never am! I see some shadow on the baby's left and the catch lights in her eyes didn't come out that great.
Other than that what do you think? Does it need more contrast? Soft?

Thanks for the help!!

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Appears under-exposed, but it may be my monitor.

 

[Mach0]

Cute baby. Looks underexposed though.

 

[adichiru]

Looks like half stop under-exposed to me too.

I would also make a suggestion if I'm allowed, although for this shot I am not sure it would work great: try to keep some space between the subject and the background and maybe, if possible, light the background 1 stop brighter (in this case) than the subject. You get a plain seamless white with this combination of over-exposure of the background and blur from relatively shallow depth of field.

She is cute! I have a 2 month old son now and I keep taking pictures daily!
Thanks for sharing!

 

[LuckySe7en]

It's definitely under exposed. Could use some kick

 

[Sonoma]

Looks like half stop under-exposed to me too.

I would also make a suggestion if I'm allowed, although for this shot I am not sure it would work great: try to keep some space between the subject and the background and maybe, if possible, light the background 1 stop brighter (in this case) than the subject. You get a plain seamless white with this combination of over-exposure of the background and blur from relatively shallow depth of field.

She is cute! I have a 2 month old son now and I keep taking pictures daily!
Thanks for sharing!

I see what you are saying, but in this case there was a hand(and arm) behind the blanket holding her up.

It's definitely under exposed. Could use some kick

By kick I assume you mean contrast?

The colors look washed when viewing the Photobucket version of the photo. I guess I need to migrate to Flickr!

Thanks again for the comments.

 

[The_Traveler]

Looks way underlit and taken at not the best f stop for the lens.
Using an on-camera flash blows all the texture out of the skin.

Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Lens: 17-70mm
Image Date: 2012-03-29 13:04:45 +0000
Focal Length: 40mm
Focus Distance: 0.72m
Aperture: f/4.5
Exposure Time: 0.0050 s (1/200)
ISO equiv: 400
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Spot
Exposure: Manual
Exposure Mode: Manual
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: Yes (Auto, return light detected)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: Adobe RGB (1998)
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows