Few pics of the kids... feedback and advice please!

[Simonch]

Bought myself a D5300 with 18-140 kit lens and a 35mm Prime. Had a play about today, using only the prime lens. I haven't used an SLR for years so pretty much shot in aperture priority all day. I've loaded a few pics up and made a few tweaks and would be keen for any advice at all, whether it's on editing, framing, improvements I could have made to any of the shots etc!

Unsure why Only one of the photos is showing as a thumbnail... the others are just attachments, advice welcome!

cheers,

Si

 

[Jeff15]

Nice shots...........

 

[CherylL]

My favorite is #3 because of the light on her face and some light in her eyes. I take a lot of photos of my grand girls. What I try to do is get on their level, look for the light in the scene and catch lights in the eyes. Some of the photos seem underexposed. Think portrait mode instead of landscape with one child or crop in post. You have two adorable children to photograph!

 

[Derrel]

Congratulations on your purchase of the Nikon D5300 and the two lenses! What a great setup! LOADS of photographic potential in such an outfit.

A few tips would be to avoid wide f/stops like f/2.2 at such close camera-to-subject distances. I did some edits on the photos, to show what "I" would do with these, and in every one except one, I "painted on" some sharpness, to compensate for lack of sharpness due to too shallow a depth of field. Kids move quickly...so, wide f/stops at close distances can (many times) lead to a slightly misplaced sharpness band. Overall, mostly good snaps of the children, both of whom are simply adorable. In my experience photographing my own son as a little boy, I found that f/4.2 to f/5.6 yielded a LOT of good, crisp photos at closer distances, with just enough in-focus, yet still a blurred backdrop on many shots.

Here are the types of edits I would do. 1-cropping down to emphasize the face 2)slightly darkening the edges of many shots and 3) painting on sharpening in Lightroom, if needed.

 

[Simonch]

Really sound advice guys, appreciate it! Chuffed with my purchase and early efforts, will stick at it and try a smaller aperture going forward!

 

[Simonch]

Also, where did I go wrong uploading the photos? Would have liked them to come up as thumbs rather than clickable links.

@Derrel thanks for taking the time to neaten up the edits, and also the honest feedback, my photoshop efforts need some work - will keep scouring the forums for inspiration!