First attempts...C&C PLEASE!

allinschenk · Jul 3, 2010

I took these for a friend. Taken after 6pm at the park in natural light. C&C is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

1.

2.

3.

4.

KmH · Jul 3, 2010

They all needed fill, which is light directed onto the down sun side of the subject, or up under the bill of the cap in the case of the little boy.

Fill can be added with a reflector, and on-the-camera strobe or an off the camera strobe (strobe = flash).

Strobed light can be direct which results in harsh, hard edged shadows, or the strobed light can be modified to soften the shadows.

The last photo needed more than just fill to balance the very bright background sky.

#1 is cropped to tight on the left side, and all of the baby (the main subject) should be visible in the last photo.

Robin Usagani · Jul 3, 2010

1 & 2 are too cold on my screen. Adjust your white balance a little I think.

mwcfarms · Jul 3, 2010

I think that one and two, the baby's skin looks a bit blue/cool as well.

BuS_RiDeR · Jul 3, 2010

Schwettylens said:
1 & 2 are too cold on my screen. Adjust your white balance a little I think.

^ I Agree.

Cute baby though. Nice framing/composition I think. Except #4... I would try not to cut off the baby's bum and the mothers back...

dak1b · Jul 3, 2010

WB is off. could use more light on the babies face.

allinschenk · Jul 3, 2010

Thank you so much everyone! I edited the baby's skin in #3, but left #1 & 2 alone...I felt the same about the skin tones. I'm shooting with a Lumix FZ-35 currently. I took these in Aperature Priority mode. I'm not too sure if this is the best mode for what I'm trying to accomplish. Any suggestions? I'm trying to make the most of the camera being that it is not a DSLR. Also, would I have been better to shoot with the flash on for these pictures? What can I use for a reflector (reasonably priced

Also, how do you know how much to adjust the white balance prior to shooting and what situations do I need to use a reflector for future reference? The same for using the flash in outdoor scenes. Thanks for all the input. Sorry for all the questions. I've picked up a few books from the library, but I'm still trying to grasp everything

allinschenk · Jul 5, 2010

Did anyone have any answers/input in regards to my questions in the last post? Help is much appreciated :mrgreen:

flyingember · Jul 5, 2010

in shadow/shade a fill flash would help. if you can control the flash power try it at different amounts. I was taking photos in daylight shade with the flash at half power recently to good results.

for a reflector metal pie plates or foil over any sort of board, those silver car cooling things that fold down smaller work too, white foam core reflects light more than you think as well.

use a reflector when your light is coming in from one side of the scene and you want to get some more light coming from the other side to balance the amount of light out. for women and babies with fine/even skin even light looks better. men work well with shadows in comparison.

for example, in the third shot, you could have chosen to bounce some light in which would have resulted in in darker the side of his face being lighter. with the family it was coming from above and you could have chosen to bounce some in underneath from at your feet level, although I like that one as is.

allinschenk · Jul 6, 2010

Thank you so much for explaining this...I can't wait to try it out next time!!

AliasPros · Jul 6, 2010

#1 is nice, other then the easy fix of color temp in LightRoom, however I would have liked to see more looking room to the babies left. When a subject is looking off to the left or right it is nice to give them room in that direction so that they don't feel or look crowded in the pic, just a thought... Baby could have been on the right side line of the "Rule of Thirds" cropping and it would have given you more room to the left.