Newborn Photography- really need some advice please

angelac56 · Jun 4, 2014

Hello, I love taking photographs of children and babies, in particular newborns. So much so that I'm hoping to make a career out of it. I'm in the process of completing courses and practicing daily . I have a garden room that would be a perfect studio( shooting distance from the subject would be 5ft at most). I would also want to take some outdoor more natural shots of children too. I currently have a Nikon D3200(hoping to upgrade if this all takes off) with the standard kit lens of 15-55mm. I've done some research into the lenses and spent over an hour talking to a photography shop. They suggested two options:

Option 1
Sigma 35mm
Nikon 60mm
Nikon 85mm

Option 2- works out cheaper as we lose a lens
Nikon 24-70mm
Nikon 60mm

I did ask about the 50mm f1.4 but the guy in shop said I would need a long shooting distance for this but my studio has about 5ft from subject max; so ruled this lens out. Would the cheaper option be better? would I get the bokeh effect that I would need for the newborns? also the 24-70mm doesn't have VR would this be a concern at low apertures? any advice would be gratefully received.

tirediron · Jun 4, 2014

One of the issues when first starting out in any field is that you don't know what you don't know. One of the problems with going to a camera store for advice is that they exist to sell gear, so they have a vested interest in you buying something. My advice to you at this point is buy nothing. Yet. The 18-55 is a perfectly decent lens, and there are a lot of elements that you need to work on before buying a butt-load of gear. Take a poll; 9 out of ten photographers will tell you that half the gear they bought when they were just starting out turned out to be the wrong gear; witness the fact that he says the 50mm wouldn't be appropriate, recommends two lenses with longer focal lengths which would require more room. Additionally, your "studio" space sounds awfull small to me; I would want a MINIMUM of 8' all around the subject and ceilings at least 10' high (in order to allow for proper lighting).

So... put your credit-card back in your wallet and relax. Pick up a copy of this book and spend the next few hundred hours watching YouTube and other videos on portrait lighting and techniques. Practice, practice, practice. If you're sure that the baby/infant route is how you want to go, buy a life-size easily posable doll and spend a few months (and I mean that literally) practicing lighting and posing; as you improve, talk to friends and friends of friends and offer to complimentary (avoid the word 'free') shoots so that you can 'test out a lighting/posing/whatever idea (this makes it much easier to begin charging when you get to that point; "You want $500 for a session? You did Sally's baby for free!" "Yes, I did, however that was just to test an idea and I gave her a couple of pictures for allowing me to use her child as a model. Yours will be a proper shoot."

FWIW, my portraiture lenses are: 85mm 1.4D, 105mm 2.8D and 70-200 2.8. The ONLY time I go below 85mm for ANY portrait is when I'm shooting large groups and can't get the space to use something longer.

The_Traveler · Jun 4, 2014

^ what he said
5 feet is a very short distance and while a wide angle lens could cover a baby at that distance , you will wrestle with the issues of perspective distortion. A 60 or an 85 on a crop frame body will be very, very limited

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/calc.htm

focal length horizontal coverage
35 ...............3'2"
60 ..............1'11"
85 ..............1' 4"

IgsEMT · Jun 4, 2014

For nearly 15yrs, all I did was weddings and events of such nature. Four year ago, courtesy of my wife

we incorporated kids and especially newborns into our repertoire...
For longest time we worked with crop frame. The primary lens has been nikon 50 1.4. After we moved to fx, the primary lens stayed 50 1.4, the ONLY disadvantage that is encountered is when doing parents I need to crop and loose pixels. However on the child alone its wide enough and yet tight enough for 99% of the images. Recently I purchased 28mm 2.8 and used it on a newborn BC I wanted the extra wide angle, on the prop - worked great!
I love my 24-70 2.8, It is my go to event lens, if I can only have one lens - it is it. However, what I find is when working with newborns it is easier working with primes BC they are lighter. Another advantage of primes over zooms (and I don't want to start a controversy), is that on 30x40 print primes are a bit sharper and crispier then zooms - since I never know what clients will print I take the safe route and work with the prime.

Side note
On events, my only prime go to lens is the fisheye, all others are zooms. However, when my wife and I are splitting up and she goes to one assignment and I go to the other, she takes the zoom lenses (less stuff to carry and I take prime lenses).
All of the above is how we do it in our studio, it is our opinion based on our research our overhead costs, etc etc.

Hope that helps.
Good luck
Joe

gsgary · Jun 4, 2014

I'm not sure how you can shoot in a studio when you only have maximum of 5 feet from subject

robbins.photo · Jun 4, 2014

angelac56 said:
Hello, I love taking photographs of children and babies, in particular newborns. So much so that I'm hoping to make a career out of it. I'm in the process of completing courses and practicing daily . I have a garden room that would be a perfect studio( shooting distance from the subject would be 5ft at most). I would also want to take some outdoor more natural shots of children too. I currently have a Nikon D3200(hoping to upgrade if this all takes off) with the standard kit lens of 15-55mm. I've done some research into the lenses and spent over an hour talking to a photography shop. They suggested two options:

Option 1
Sigma 35mm
Nikon 60mm
Nikon 85mm

Option 2- works out cheaper as we lose a lens
Nikon 24-70mm
Nikon 60mm

I did ask about the 50mm f1.4 but the guy in shop said I would need a long shooting distance for this but my studio has about 5ft from subject max; so ruled this lens out. Would the cheaper option be better? would I get the bokeh effect that I would need for the newborns? also the 24-70mm doesn't have VR would this be a concern at low apertures? any advice would be gratefully received.

I'm assuming that you already have a kit lens of some sort, my suggestion? Grab yourself a baby doll, put it in your studio, set the focal length on your kit lens to 35 mm and see how much room that gives you to manuever. If you can do the same at 60 and 85, or as close to those lengths as you can get. This will give you a much better idea as to the sorts of shots you can get at the real world distances you'll be dealing with. Then you can start deciding what lenses you really need and which ones will really come in handy.

The VR wouldn't be an issue as long as you can keep the shutter speed above the focal length your shooting at, so if you were shooting at 70 mm as long as you keep your shutter speed above 1/70 then camera shake shouldn't be an issue. If you need to shoot at lower shutter speeds than this, just use a tripod.