Photo shoot of my newborn... CC please!

[splproductions]

I've been "taking pictures" for a long time, but it's mostly just been point-and-shoot and then trying to touch them up in Photoshop. I just got a Sigma 50mm 1.4 and a Speedlight for my Canon 500D, and I actually took the time to figure out what I'm doing. So this is my first "real" photo shoot. Please let me know what I need to work on.

On both of these I had natural light coming in through kitchen windows on the right, and I was bouncing the flash off to the left (about 45 degrees up) into the kitchen.

I did a custom WB with an 18% gray card before shooting, so I didn't think I needed to change the WB much. I did change the temperature a bit on the first one. In ACR, I upped the exposure, brought up the Blacks just a tad, put just a hair of Clarity on it, a Medium Contrast tone curve, some Sharpening, and the Vignetting. In Photoshop I ran the Portraiture plug-in and reduced the opacity to around 40% and took the warmth to -7. Other than fixing a few blemishes those were the only additional edits.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Here are the before and after:

 

[splproductions]

I removed some of the green tint that I for some reason put in the first one. It matches the original grey wall now.

 

[tirediron]

C&C per req:
1/2: To be honest, I'm not overly fond of this one. The composition seems rather awkward with the foreground being very out of focus (OOF). I think a 'top-down' shot focusing on the head & shoulders would have been a better choice. You did a job on the lighting, but they seem somewhat over-exposed with blown or nearly blown highlights in the foreground.

3/4: A classic newborn pose (Note, for future reference, please number your images) with #3 having a better exposure and WB. The feet seem slightly soft to me; for poses like this ensure that your depth of field (DoF) is sufficient to ensure sharp focus on the whole subject.

Overall, they're not bad. I would spend some time searching 'newborne photography' for more pose/composition ideas. When shooting with large white/bright areas in the scene, I like to leave my rear LCD set to display highlights (The 'blinkies') so that I know right away if my exposure needs any tweaking.

Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.

~John

 

[splproductions]

C&C per req:
You did a job on the lighting, but they seem somewhat over-exposed with blown or nearly blown highlights in the foreground.

... with #3 having a better exposure and WB. ...

...When shooting with large white/bright areas in the scene, I like to leave my rear LCD set to display highlights (The 'blinkies') so that I know right away if my exposure needs any tweaking.

Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.

~John

Hi John,

When I was shooting, I turned on the "blinkies" and was watching out for that, and I think they were 99% clear. But in ACR when I adjusted the exposure, I thought it was OK to blow out the highlights as long as it's not on your subject. I guess I'm just trying to mimic what I see in pro photos, where it seems "awash in white", and I don't know how else to do that other than bump the exposure up. So fill me in... is blowing out the highlights bad?

Another question... I don't quite trust myself yet on manual focus, so I was toggling my auto-focus to whatever red-dot area would be closest to his eyes. But sometimes there wasn't an auto-focus spot in the right area, so I would auto-focus on his eye, and then move the camera to the right position to frame the photo. Is that bad? (I'm guessing so). What do I do in those situations? Or do I just need to learn how to manual focus?

 

[tirediron]

Ahhh, post-production blown highlights. Okay fair enough. It's not that bad, but remember that the eye is naturally drawn toward a bright area, so while you've done a good job of controlling exposure on the subject, you're actually creating a situation where the eye is being directed away from the subject.

What you're describing is a 'high key' look. This is achieved by supplying a lot of light to the scene, and minimizing shadow, but ENSURING your exposure is appropriate to a bright scene. Typically at least 3 lights are used in a high-key shot.

You're using a modern camera and a modern lens. IT WAS MEANT TO AUTO-FOCUS!!!! Let it do it's job. It will do it well. When you're doing this sort of work, use a single focusing point and place that on the main point of focus. Focus and recompose can cause depth-of-field related sharpness issues. I generally recommend avoiding it if possible.

 

[splproductions]

You're using a modern camera and a modern lens. IT WAS MEANT TO AUTO-FOCUS!!!! Let it do it's job. It will do it well. When you're doing this sort of work, use a single focusing point and place that on the main point of focus. Focus and recompose can cause depth-of-field related sharpness issues. I generally recommend avoiding it if possible.

Phew!!! For some reason I thought manual focus was what the "pros" would do on these shots. Not quite sure where I got that from.

I've read that I should focus on the eye that is closest to me. So if there isn't a focusing point that falls over that eye (or face), what do I do? Just use the nearest focusing point? I knew that moving the camera after the autofocus was going to be bad, but I didn't know what else to do. I guess the wider the aperture is the more likely moving the camera will result in the face out of focus?

 

[MTVision]

Phew!!! For some reason I thought manual focus was what the "pros" would do on these shots. Not quite sure where I got that from.

I've read that I should focus on the eye that is closest to me. So if there isn't a focusing point that falls over that eye (or face), what do I do? Just use the nearest focusing point? I knew that moving the camera after the autofocus was going to be bad, but I didn't know what else to do. I guess the wider the aperture is the more likely moving the camera will result in the face out of focus?

Your photos aren't out of focus (not that i can see on my phone) so I don't think you did anything wrong. The feet are out of focus due to a shallow depth of field. Your aperture was at f/3.2 - if you were only 4 feet away your depth of field would be around 2 1/2". That's isn't very much! And with a shallow DOF I wouldn't recommend focus + recompose. Not saying you can't do it though!

You could always reposition yourself so that the focus point falls on the eye - its not like your sweet baby is going to be moving.

Even if the pros use manual focus you should do what works for you - be it autofocus or manual focus! But you will probably be thankful for autofocus once they become toddlers!

Great shots and congrats (on the babies and the new lens)!!!