First paid shoot! C&C welcome

[CMfromIL]

Well, I got my license and business insurance and looked for clients. I had a family friend ask that I take their photos this weekend. And I got paid.
Here are some images. Most were ambient light, although the two in the covered bridge used bounce flash off the ceiling. It was really dark and shadowy in the bridge.
1. The parents:

2. Kids

3. Candid, unplanned shot

4. 2nd Candid shot, I cut the arm off intentionally as he was holding his younger brothers hand who was out of the shot.

5. The little guy was getting pretty tired. We were at about 50 minutes of a 60 minute shoot. Even though he wasn't looking directly at me, I felt it worked.

 

[amolitor]

The matching shirts mom and dad selected are.. not very good Not your fault, though!

The highlights are pretty consistently blown, or very close to blown, on their skin. This sort of mixed/dappled light makes that sort of thing hard. You might go back to the originals, especially if you shot raw, and try to pull a little more out of the highlights.

The first one is a not particularly flattering angle, and the shirts are awful.

The second one is OK, but shows the issues with the blown highlights worse than any of the others. If you can tone those highlights down, this could be a very decent shot, though. The kids are not in a very good place, they're all mugging heavily, which is something you gotta learn to work past.

The third one sort of weirds me out. It's not perfectly clear that this is mom, to the new eye. The family might well love it, though, since they don't have that ambiguity that I do.

The last two are a lot better -- the kids have gotten through the "mugging for the camera" or your timing has gotten better. The last one is arguably excellent.

I wish the old boy would open his eyes more!

I think there's some real potential here. The family probably loves these, although I think you can probably improve them. You've got a lot of stuff down, and a few technical things you can work on, and I think the biggest thing you need to do is exert more control over the shoot - make them dump the shirts, have them bring a couple outfits so they have something to exchange them FOR, and figure out how to get the kids out of "mugging for the camera" quicker.

 

[CMfromIL]

Thanks, yes I shot all in raw, so I'll go back and work on the highlights. The little boy was hilarious, and a 'painful' smiler. And yes, the eldest boy (as well as dad) don't keep their eyes open very far. On several shots I had to zoom in to make sure they were not shut.

Thank you very much for the feedback, much appreciated.

 

[MLeeK]

There seems to be some major focus issues here.
1 Appears to be in focus for the most part, but definitely could have used some fill flash. Mom has raccoon eyes. This one is warm to the point of tinting the subjects to the orange.
2, 4 and 5 all look like missed focus.
Exposures are decent for not using flash, but the blown areas are definitely a detraction. Flash would also have kept your subjects from being green in #2.
#3 is very orange again. Partly that is a reflection from the wood, but on the right side your subjects are ORANGE and on their left they're yellow, that needs to come down a bit on the temp. Warm is good for a fall day, but orange isn't so good.
4 has great color and the moment is great, but the cut off hand and closed eyes and kind of ends the deal for me on this one. The focus isn't as bad as the other two on this one, but it's still off.
5 The inconsistent lighting on the subjects could be fixed with the adjustment brush. The focus and the fact that the little guy is trying to watch their feet to time his steps kills it for me. This was a great shot. Do you have another you could head swap or that is actually in focus?

 

[CMfromIL]

I'm not sure why I'm having so many focus issues. I am shooting at 5.6 or so on the 50mm, and it does appear they are soft. The last however was with my 70-200 and I don't usually have focus issues with that lens.

I will work on the color at home to fix the 'orange' issue.

 

[MLeeK]

If those are the lenses you used you have SERIOUS focus issues. I assumed it was the kit lens!
What focus mode are you in? Are you using one focus point? Are you focusing and recomposing? Are you locking the focus point on the eyes, or center of the image?

 

[amolitor]

I hate myself for looking at the EXIF, but I think part of your problem might be that you're shooting at pretty high ISOs, 400 and 800, when you need not be. If your shutter speed is 1/1000, you can let the ISO breathe a bit.

 

[manaheim]

The matching shirts mom and dad selected are.. not very good Not your fault, though!

The highlights are pretty consistently blown, or very close to blown, on their skin. This sort of mixed/dappled light makes that sort of thing hard. You might go back to the originals, especially if you shot raw, and try to pull a little more out of the highlights.

The first one is a not particularly flattering angle, and the shirts are awful.

The second one is OK, but shows the issues with the blown highlights worse than any of the others. If you can tone those highlights down, this could be a very decent shot, though. The kids are not in a very good place, they're all mugging heavily, which is something you gotta learn to work past.

The third one sort of weirds me out. It's not perfectly clear that this is mom, to the new eye. The family might well love it, though, since they don't have that ambiguity that I do.

The last two are a lot better -- the kids have gotten through the "mugging for the camera" or your timing has gotten better. The last one is arguably excellent.

I wish the old boy would open his eyes more!

I think there's some real potential here. The family probably loves these, although I think you can probably improve them. You've got a lot of stuff down, and a few technical things you can work on, and I think the biggest thing you need to do is exert more control over the shoot - make them dump the shirts, have them bring a couple outfits so they have something to exchange them FOR, and figure out how to get the kids out of "mugging for the camera" quicker.

Agree with everything amolitor says.

 

[CMfromIL]

@MLeek

I am using generally 1 focus point (not the 'auto') and put that spot on the subjects face. Lens itself is on auto focus. I don't normally shoot them wide open either.

I try not to move after composing the shot, I just pick the spot and push the shutter in halfway, wait for the focus spot to ding 'red' then fire. I've tried several focus spots. The last on I used AI servo as they were moving towards me. The weird thing is they look great in the viewfinder, not so much later.

I don't know what the hell is wrong to be honest. I just noticed a real degradation in focus quality in the last 2 outings. Previously I hadn't had issues. I'm tempted to send the camera in because it shouldn't be this hard to get a razor sharp image. I'm not using crap lenses.

 

[MLeeK]

Are you using a filter?

 

[Derrel]

If those are the lenses you used you have SERIOUS focus issues. I assumed it was the kit lens!
What focus mode are you in? Are you using one focus point? Are you focusing and recomposing? Are you locking the focus point on the eyes, or center of the image?

I do not know what is being talked about as "focusing issues", except on the last two frames, which do appear OOF. On shots 1 through 3, I can see individual, single hairs...what I think we have here are down-sampling or JPEG compression issues, of lack of proper sharpening for web-based, web-sized images...these three shots do not appear to me to be mis-focused. As to the photos, well, this is your first payed shoot, and while it is not horrible by ANY means, the lighting you were shooting under is very,very tricky light. Not the kind of light I would want to have to work under.

 

[CMfromIL]

@MLeek,

No filter. Just camera-lens-subject. I do have a lens hood on both lenses, but that shouldn't be causing issues.

 

[MLeeK]

No, the lens hood wouldn't. How about doing a back focus test with both lenses?

 

[CMfromIL]

No, the lens hood wouldn't. How about doing a back focus test with both lenses?

I'll plead stupid on this one. What do you mean by a back focus test?

 

[rexbobcat]

I would say the main issue for me (besides the afformentioned focus issues) is the lack of fill on their faces. The bright part in at least three of the photos is the background)