First Newborn shoot

Haya.H · May 30, 2012

This wasnt really a photoshoot, hes my cousins baby. I had my camera and decided to torture the poor 10 day old babyboy. I felt like if he could talk he would probably be cussing me out :meh: Anyways explain to me why the color turned out like this?
Im looking into buying some lighting equipment and i need advice on what to get. First time looking into lighting stuff. and i have no idea where to start.

by the way straight of the camera.

jowensphoto · May 30, 2012

Before you get into external flash, you should learn how to properly use your camera. The white balance and exposure are really off in this set; read up about using your in camera meter, and perhaps purchase/learn to use a grey card.

mommy-medic · May 30, 2012

Your photos are markes as NOT ok to edit, otherwise I would show you what adjusting the white balance (and fixing baby skin that's naturally a bit jaunidced or red and blotchy) would do for your pics. As the previous poster mentioned, it's not a matter of buying lighting- that would just make these orangey-yellow images brighter orangey-yellow- it't the white balance.

What camera are you using? I personally do NOT learn well at all from manuals, and need hands on show-and-tell to learn. I watched a youtube video on how to custom set my white balance on my camera, bought a $9 18% grey card off amazon, and now only have to adjust my white balance in post processing about 5% of the time. Well worth it to learn how to shoot it correctly than to spend the money on more gear and still have to spend the time in post fixing each one.

Haya.H · May 30, 2012

mommy-medic said:
Your photos are markes as NOT ok to edit, otherwise I would show you what adjusting the white balance (and fixing baby skin that's naturally a bit jaunidced or red and blotchy) would do for your pics. As the previous poster mentioned, it's not a matter of buying lighting- that would just make these orangey-yellow images brighter orangey-yellow- it't the white balance.

What camera are you using? I personally do NOT learn well at all from manuals, and need hands on show-and-tell to learn. I watched a youtube video on how to custom set my white balance on my camera, bought a $9 18% grey card off amazon, and now only have to adjust my white balance in post processing about 5% of the time. Well worth it to learn how to shoot it correctly than to spend the money on more gear and still have to spend the time in post fixing each one.

Im using a T1i. with the 50mm 1.8 lens. I usually like to shoot with natural light but these were taken at night & inside. And i usually do edit them on photoshop to try to fix the lighting and the white balance but i left my charger at a friends for the laptop with all the pictures on it as well as photoshop. I also dont learn from manuals i usually like trial and error. but im asking like when i put in circumstances where i have to shoot indoors, what lighting equipment should i use/buy?

and you can go ahead and edit these if you'd like

mommy-medic · May 30, 2012

Well, a simple external flash bounced off the ceiling or bounced off a couple reflectors will work well. I shoot Nikon so I don't know which flash to recommend, but I know that both cannon and Nikon have off-brand flashes that can be remotely controlled from the camera. Hopefully someone can recommend that for you.

Haya.H · May 30, 2012

mommy-medic said:
Well, a simple external flash bounced off the ceiling or bounced off a couple reflectors will work well. I shoot Nikon so I don't know which flash to recommend, but I know that both cannon and Nikon have off-brand flashes that can be remotely controlled from the camera. Hopefully someone can recommend that for you.

What do you look for when your buying an external flash?

vtf · May 30, 2012

What were the settings? Aperture, shutter and iso. You seem to know your plane of focus with the 50 1.8 so I would start shooting in RAW and adjust white balance to suit. With the 50 1.8 you should almost be able to shoot w/o flash with 1.8 and iso at 3200 or so. Some good pictures of a cute baby, some tweaking and they'll be fine. By the way I just got a Yongnuo 565ex flash and love it, very powerful and right price, comparable to Canon version. Read everything you can about a flash, it's important to know why you need one, read all the reviews and ask educated questions on the forum from what you learned in the reviews you've read. Do you need portability or maybe go with Alien strobes for a studio. Keep shooting:thumbup:

michael9000000 · May 30, 2012

jowensphoto said:
Before you get into external flash, you should learn how to properly use your camera. The white balance and exposure are really off in this set; read up about using your in camera meter, and perhaps purchase/learn to use a grey card.

+1 (Especially the part about the grey card)

michael9000000 · May 30, 2012

Haya.H said:
Im using a T1i. with the 50mm 1.8 lens. I usually like to shoot with natural light but these were taken at night & inside. And i usually do edit them on photoshop to try to fix the lighting and the white balance but i left my charger at a friends for the laptop with all the pictures on it as well as photoshop. I also dont learn from manuals i usually like trial and error. but im asking like when i put in circumstances where i have to shoot indoors, what lighting equipment should i use/buy?

and you can go ahead and edit these if you'd like

Hello Haya! I shoot with a t1i also, so if you purchase a grey card, I can show you exactly how to use it with your camera, step-by-step. This will eliminate most white balance issues you'll get from shooting indoors without a flash.

Haya.H · May 31, 2012

vtf said:
What were the settings? Aperture, shutter and iso. You seem to know your plane of focus with the 50 1.8 so I would start shooting in RAW and adjust white balance to suit. With the 50 1.8 you should almost be able to shoot w/o flash with 1.8 and iso at 3200 or so. Some good pictures of a cute baby, some tweaking and they'll be fine. By the way I just got a Yongnuo 565ex flash and love it, very powerful and right price, comparable to Canon version. Read everything you can about a flash, it's important to know why you need one, read all the reviews and ask educated questions on the forum from what you learned in the reviews you've read. Do you need portability or maybe go with Alien strobes for a studio. Keep shooting:thumbup:

The settings were, f/2.8 , ISO 200m, shutter speed 1/60. & ill look into that flash, as well as the articles

oh and ive been trying to shoot RAW, its not working out... you can barely make out the pictures. But i believe thats because im doing something wrong lol. ive been messing around with it a lot. but still havent gotten it right.

jowensphoto · May 31, 2012

I also shoot Canon, OP. Canon 430EX II Speedlite TTL Shoe-Mount Flash 2805B002 B&H Photo is a good flash to start with.

Also, I was just on youtube doing some research. This is a great video about using external flash: