taking photos of my little cousin but need help

[vbrandon91]

well my uncle has asked me if i can take some photos of his baby boy and so now i got me a little model to shoot for a couple of days.

since ive only practiced with outdoor shoots and none inside im gonna need a little bit of help to get some pretty good shots..

im gonna be doing this with a nikon d40 with the 55-200 kit lens ,but i didnt know if i should use the flash or not? i only have the popup flash so im held to that for now.what about lighting?should i bring in some artificial light?the shots will most likely be taken on a bed with some neutral colored cover so what do you think about that?

uhm well i cant think of anything else at the moment so thanks for the help

brandon

 

[K_Pugh]

Personally i wouldn't use the flash, like you said the best idea would be to bring in some artificial light, or you could try keeping your cousin near window light. You'll probably need a high ISO, i'm not sure what you can get away with on the D40 before noise becomes too much of an issue (i'd try keep it below 800 though). Aperture priority and keep it wide open, or down a stop..

If you're bringing in more artificial light i'd shoot in RAW mode so you can adjust the white balance later in PP if it's a little off.

my advice may not be perfect but i'm sure it's sorta handy lol

 

[Montana]

Portraits of children and babies is most excellent....perfect skin! No imperfections to try and hide with soft focus, etc. I agree with all of the above comments and will also add- have you ever tried bouncing your built in flash? I know jack squat about Nikon, and I have never tried bouncing the built in on my 40D upwards, but it is a thought. You could easily make any kind of reflector to reflect light to the ceiling then it'll bounce back to the child. I would give it a whirl!

Derrick

 

[vbrandon91]

got any more in fo on this bouncing light?

 

[Montana]

Well, like my 580EX II Canon flash can be pointed up to bounce the light from the ceiling. This reduces harsh shadows and makes for much better flash portraits IMHO. You should experiment with white posterboard or even aluminum foil under and in front of the flash to get it (the light) up there (the ceiling). May not work, but would be easy enough to try.

 

[mrodgers]

Portraits of children and babies is most excellent....perfect skin! No imperfections to try and hide with soft focus, etc.

Ha! That's a bunch of bologna. I have a 4 year old and I think every photo I have to do work on her skin. I'm constantly cloning out chocolate, spaghetti sauce, pudding, marker, etc etc

 

[Resin42]

Ha! That's a bunch of bologna. I have a 4 year old and I think every photo I have to do work on her skin. I'm constantly cloning out chocolate, spaghetti sauce, pudding, marker, etc etc

Lol, as much as I love taking shots of my 4 yr old nephew there's something very unnerving about having to clone the boogers out of his nose.

 

[Montana]

LOL- I was talking age spots and wrinkles! Not boogies!

Too funny!

Derrick

 

[Tolyk]

Another solution instead of bouncing the flash would be to go to your local photography store and see if they have Lee Filters. They make sheets of different types of diffusers. Pick one up, cut it to the size of your flash and tape it around. Diffusing that onboard flash will make it slightly more useful.


Edit: Or better yet, anyone that sells Lee filters should have Lee sample packs. It's a little booklet of 1 inch by 3 inch filters that's generally free. They're perfectly sized for off camera flashes, but in the case of on-camera, will still need some cutting.. But.. free

 

[vbrandon91]

thanks guys

well heres a sample photo of what my subject will be..

 

[vbrandon91]

any ideas on how to make the above photo "pop"

 

[Tolyk]

You used the onboard flash directly didn't you?

 

[manaheim]

You used the onboard flash directly didn't you?

Totally... you can see that harsh dropoff at the top of his head and bright reflections on his nose.

vbran... no matter what you do, never (and I mean never) point a flash directly at someone's face. I'm not saying this to abuse you for doing it, I'm saying this as a guideline you should do whatever you can to stick to going forward.

Direct head-on flash does horrible evil things to people (and things, frankly) in pictures. Harsh shadows behind and around subject, harsh reflections off skin and other surfaces, blown out colors, yadda yadda. bad bad bad things.

If you can, pick up a flash that you can bounce off of a ceiling or a wall or something (the light comes back to the subject diffused and not from the same horizontal plane as the camera lens, avoiding some of the harsh shadows and whatnot). You can get flashes like this fairly inexpensively. Make sure to get one made for your camera.

If you cannot, generally err on the side of using high ISO over flash every time. Yes, you will get some nosie, but programs like NeatImage will clear this up a bit for you... I'll also tell you a trick... slightly SLIGHTLY overexpose on the subject on high ISO images and then tone it down in photoshop. (use RAW) This will tend to give you more solid colors on at least the subject in question- darker areas will still be noisy. I have a couple example shots of this if you would like to see.

btw, an example of an indirect flash picture I took some years back... not perfect because I was new at it, but one of my favorite examples nonetheless...

 

[Tolyk]

Also, the diffuser + tape thing I mentioned helps even out the lighting a bit. I just did some trials with it a bit ago and it seemed to work alright (I don't own an off-camera flash either, but I don't tend to work indoors)

 

[vbrandon91]

okay so my photos would have been crap so thanks for the critique...

so what is a way that i can get a flash diffuser?or make one?

so would it be better to use artificial light instead of using the flash?

what would be the ideal environment of shooting this subject?