Wish me luck....

[luvmyfamily]

First time I've been on here today, no time!! Busy, busy, so have just a sec. I have been busy preparing. I have a practice photo session today with a 4 and 6 year old, brother and sister in my studio and using the black backdrop. I am used to photograhing children, but this time using my new 50mm lens. I took some test shots on my husband, and f/2.8 seemed to work best on the test shots, rather than f/2 or f/1.8. Batteries fully charged-CHECK! Poses and ideas written down-CHECK. Studio and backdrop set up, backdrops ironed. Also, watched some you tube video tutorials on lighting positioning. This is so important to me today because I hope to one day be able to actually charge for photo sessions. I have been borrowing friends, and friends of friends for volunteers and doing a lot of work for free and giving them a CD with the images on it as a "thank you for volunteering and helping me gain more experience." Anyway, will post some soon from the session today soon for some C&C to help better improve. Now....anxiety pill please, J/K

 

[luvmyfamily]

Oh, lens cleaned with my lens pens, card formatted. I always write down my pose and prop ideas so I don't get so caught up in trying to take a good shot that I forget to take one i wanted to take.

 

[Vtec44]

Good luck. I'm lucky if people actually want to pay for my work! lol

 

[luvmyfamily]

Good luck. I'm lucky if people actually want to pay for my work! lol

I have had them offer, but I say not yet. My payment is your time

 

[MTVision]

Be careful using f/2.8. Your DOF might still be pretty shallow (depending on the distance between you and your subjects) so it might be hard to get both kids in sharp focus. If you are 7ft or closer you will only have about 6-7" or less of depth of field. You can always stop down a little bit to get more wiggle room...

Good luck though! Hope all goes well

 

[Derrel]

Be careful using f/2.8. Your DOF might still be pretty shallow (depending on the distance between you and your subjects) so it might be hard to get both kids in sharp focus. If you are 7ft or closer you will only have about 6-7" or less of depth of field. You can always stop down a little bit to get more wiggle room...

Good luck though! Hope all goes well

That was the first thought that popped into my head: "Oh NO! She's gonna try and do a two-kid shoot with a fifty using f/2.8! Ack!"

Uh, unless the kids are posed in classic, traditional ways, where the heads are MADE to be almost the same,exact distance from the lens, f/2.8 at indoor portrait distances is a HUGE,HUGE problem just waiting to happen...there simply is not enough depth of field with a 50mm lens at f/2.8 at close ranges. Indoors, one has the ability to bring in enough light to allow a suitable f/stop, like f/6.3, or f/7.1, or f/8...on ONE-person shots, f/2.8 can be used on many, but not all poses...with two faces to pull focus on, f/2.8 is just,well...it's very,very,very difficult to work with unless you have been trained in classic, tight, traditional portrait posing methods.

 

[luvmyfamily]

I did change the Aperture a bit, I had to due to light changes. When I had taken the test shots of my hubby, we also had natural daylight coming through the windows as it was earlier in the day. Photographing after dark, on a black backdrop....priceless. I did get quite a few good shots, some turned out well, others didn't. I didn't get one face blurred and one face not though, they just weren't as sharp as they would have been outdoors, but brrrrrrr, toooo cold. That is why this was a practice session. Earlier when I did a test shot on hubby, I lowered it to f/1.8 and it was just too bright, which is why f/2.8 worked better at that time of day. I really want summer to get here so I can do some outdoor portraits. I will post a few when I get some edited. Too tired now to edit....yawn...

 

[luvmyfamily]

Be careful using f/2.8. Your DOF might still be pretty shallow (depending on the distance between you and your subjects) so it might be hard to get both kids in sharp focus. If you are 7ft or closer you will only have about 6-7" or less of depth of field. You can always stop down a little bit to get more wiggle room...

Good luck though! Hope all goes well

Yeah, I did stop it down a bit at times, but also not all of the poses were of both of them. I did some of them separately as well. I am used to using my kit lens, so this was good practice. I did pose them beside each other. Also, this was indoor studio work at night on a black backdrop, so the challenge wasn't as easy as an outdoor shot. I will post some when I have edited some. One thing I liked about the 50mm, was that the cloth black backdrop I have looks completely black. Wasn't really trying to achieve DOF for studio work, would have had I been outdoors.

 

[MTVision]

I did change the Aperture a bit, I had to due to light changes. When I had taken the test shots of my hubby, we also had natural daylight coming through the windows as it was earlier in the day. Photographing after dark, on a black backdrop....priceless. I did get quite a few good shots, some turned out well, others didn't. I didn't get one face blurred and one face not though, they just weren't as sharp as they would have been outdoors, but brrrrrrr, toooo cold. That is why this was a practice session. Earlier when I did a test shot on hubby, I lowered it to f/1.8 and it was just too bright, which is why f/2.8 worked better at that time of day. I really want summer to get here so I can do some outdoor portraits. I will post a few when I get some edited. Too tired now to edit....yawn...

Outdoors doesn't really have anything to do with sharpness. If you were around f/2.8 or wider then that's why they weren't sharp.

Before you bought the lens I mentioned not shooting wide open (f/1.8) because it's easy to miss focus and the image will be soft. At f/2.8 (unless you are 10 or more feet away) you won't have enough depth of field to get your subjects in sharp focus - they may not be blurry, per se, but they won't be tack sharp - which is what it would be if you had perfect focus.

You should play around with the DOF calculator

 

[luvmyfamily]

I did change the Aperture a bit, I had to due to light changes. When I had taken the test shots of my hubby, we also had natural daylight coming through the windows as it was earlier in the day. Photographing after dark, on a black backdrop....priceless. I did get quite a few good shots, some turned out well, others didn't. I didn't get one face blurred and one face not though, they just weren't as sharp as they would have been outdoors, but brrrrrrr, toooo cold. That is why this was a practice session. Earlier when I did a test shot on hubby, I lowered it to f/1.8 and it was just too bright, which is why f/2.8 worked better at that time of day. I really want summer to get here so I can do some outdoor portraits. I will post a few when I get some edited. Too tired now to edit....yawn...

Outdoors doesn't really have anything to do with sharpness. If you were around f/2.8 or wider then that's why they weren't sharp.

Before you bought the lens I mentioned not shooting wide open (f/1.8) because it's easy to miss focus and the image will be soft. At f/2.8 (unless you are 10 or more feet away) you won't have enough depth of field to get your subjects in sharp focus - they may not be blurry, per se, but they won't be tack sharp - which is what it would be if you had perfect focus.

You should play around with the DOF calculator

I don't have the room indoors to stand so far away unfortunately. I am getting ready to post one photo, and you are right, not tack sharp Had I been outdoors, I could stand farther away. DOF calculator will be my new best friend starting tomorrow. Thank you for your help Really sleepy, I will post some more tomorrow, but am posting one from today and you will see she is not tact sharp as she could have been. :meh:

 

[MTVision]

I don't have the room indoors to stand so far away unfortunately. I am getting ready to post one photo, and you are right, not tack sharp Had I been outdoors, I could stand farther away. DOF calculator will be my new best friend starting tomorrow. Thank you for your help Really sleepy, I will post some more tomorrow, but am posting one from today and you will see she is not tact sharp as she could have been. :meh:

I figured you wouldn't have tons of room to backup inside- that's why you should definitely use a smaller aperture. The closer you are the shallower your DOF - the harder it is to nail focus (especially on multiple subjects).

The shallow DOF (blurred background) is probably why your backdrop looks different then before.

 

[cgipson1]

I did change the Aperture a bit, I had to due to light changes. When I had taken the test shots of my hubby, we also had natural daylight coming through the windows as it was earlier in the day. Photographing after dark, on a black backdrop....priceless. I did get quite a few good shots, some turned out well, others didn't. I didn't get one face blurred and one face not though, they just weren't as sharp as they would have been outdoors, but brrrrrrr, toooo cold. That is why this was a practice session. Earlier when I did a test shot on hubby, I lowered it to f/1.8 and it was just too bright, which is why f/2.8 worked better at that time of day. I really want summer to get here so I can do some outdoor portraits. I will post a few when I get some edited. Too tired now to edit....yawn...

Outdoors doesn't really have anything to do with sharpness. If you were around f/2.8 or wider then that's why they weren't sharp.

Before you bought the lens I mentioned not shooting wide open (f/1.8) because it's easy to miss focus and the image will be soft. At f/2.8 (unless you are 10 or more feet away) you won't have enough depth of field to get your subjects in sharp focus - they may not be blurry, per se, but they won't be tack sharp - which is what it would be if you had perfect focus.

You should play around with the DOF calculator

I don't have the room indoors to stand so far away unfortunately. I am getting ready to post one photo, and you are right, not tack sharp Had I been outdoors, I could stand farther away. DOF calculator will be my new best friend starting tomorrow. Thank you for your help Really sleepy, I will post some more tomorrow, but am posting one from today and you will see she is not tact sharp as she could have been. :meh:

If you shoot below F4 without a good reason.. then you need to reconsider what you are doing! Get some experience under your belt before you start trying to get fancy! Especially with two people in the shot. Also.. FLASH! Learn it, use it! Or do you really aspire to be a "Natural Light Joke".. Oops.. I meant "photographer"!

 

[luvmyfamily]

Outdoors doesn't really have anything to do with sharpness. If you were around f/2.8 or wider then that's why they weren't sharp.

Before you bought the lens I mentioned not shooting wide open (f/1.8) because it's easy to miss focus and the image will be soft. At f/2.8 (unless you are 10 or more feet away) you won't have enough depth of field to get your subjects in sharp focus - they may not be blurry, per se, but they won't be tack sharp - which is what it would be if you had perfect focus.

You should play around with the DOF calculator

I don't have the room indoors to stand so far away unfortunately. I am getting ready to post one photo, and you are right, not tack sharp Had I been outdoors, I could stand farther away. DOF calculator will be my new best friend starting tomorrow. Thank you for your help Really sleepy, I will post some more tomorrow, but am posting one from today and you will see she is not tact sharp as she could have been. :meh:

If you shoot below F4 without a good reason.. then you need to reconsider what you are doing! Get some experience under your belt before you start trying to get fancy! Especially with two people in the shot. Also.. FLASH! Learn it, use it! Or do you really aspire to be a "Natural Light Joke".. Oops.. I meant "photographer"!

YES, I am a natural light portrait "photographer." LOL! I just posted one, and come on man...give a little credit for attempting indoor studio photography with an ADHD child. I just posted one, so rip away...but it's past my bedtime. I will post more from todays session when I get more edited. The one I just posted was at f/2.8.

 

[luvmyfamily]

I don't have the room indoors to stand so far away unfortunately. I am getting ready to post one photo, and you are right, not tack sharp Had I been outdoors, I could stand farther away. DOF calculator will be my new best friend starting tomorrow. Thank you for your help Really sleepy, I will post some more tomorrow, but am posting one from today and you will see she is not tact sharp as she could have been. :meh:

I figured you wouldn't have tons of room to backup inside- that's why you should definitely use a smaller aperture. The closer you are the shallower your DOF - the harder it is to nail focus (especially on multiple subjects).

The shallow DOF (blurred background) is probably why your backdrop looks different then before.

Yeah, I am ready to burn this studio and bring on summer where I have plenty of room to move about. You get really cool portraits outdoors rather than a boring backdrop.

 

[MTVision]

Wasn't really trying to achieve DOF for studio work, would have had I been outdoors.

Depth of field is always there.

Maybe along with the DOF calculator you should do an exercise to help you "see" it. It may help you more then just looking at numbers.

DOF exercise would be something like

Take a perfume bottle, can, or something and place it a specific distance from you - say 5ft. Take a picture of the bottle with various apertures - start wide open @ f/1.8 then use 2.8, 3.5, 4, 5.6, 8, 11.

Then put more distance between your subject and you - say 10ft and go through the same apertures again.

I think doing something similar to this will help you understand depth of field better...