Any good? (baby pics)

Flutist

I'm trying really hard to get pics of people, but babies are just the hardest I think. So what do you think of these pics? Are they any good? Can I keep them? Scrap them? Scrap my camera? :rofl

1.My son 8mos. who wouldn't stop moving for anything so his eyes are fuzzy


2. Friend's baby boy

pvrsvarma

You can keep them!

Cheers!

Flutist

pvrsvarma wrote:

You can keep them!

Cheers!

Thanks. These are pretty much SOOC, what edit would you recommend?

pvrsvarma

Flutist wrote:

Thanks. These are pretty much SOOC, what edit would you recommend?

For the first shot you can do bit of sharpening. Converting to B/W would be good idea. The strips on this shirt would look good in BW. Can also boost contrast further.

Cheers!

thebigsky

Hi Shannon,

It's certainly a challenge shooting babies, as you mentioned they are continually on the move requiring a fast shutter speed.

To obtain that I've ditched my hang up about high ISO's as I prefer to shoot in natural light (flash never seems to work for me,) so I usually go straight up to ISO 800 (fine if you get the exposure correct) and try to position the baby near as large window as possible.

I tend to favour larger apertures as there are often distracting elements around when trying to shoot babies in their home environment and this throws them out of focus, obviously move as much stuff as you can.

I always shoot in manual mode, with a suitable shutter speed prioritised in my mind making adjustments to ISO and Aperture accordingly to obtain correct exposure.

However it remains a great challenge obtaining focus on those continually moving eyes, resist the temptation to keep checking what you've got as they always smile or do something interesting when you're chimping. Just keep shooting until either they or you are fed up.

I took this one of my son yesterday, sat him in a ring next to our french doors and took about 40 shots, selected this one and in PP I increased the exposure on the eyes slightly and applied some vignetting, I might go back and bring the exposure on the right ear down slightly, it's not blown but looks a little odd.



f/4.0
1/350 Sec
ISO 800
24-70 at 70mm

Charlie

Flutist

Thanks Charlie!! I've got to get more hours in behind the camera. This full-time job thing keeps getting in the way

Mitchell

With these cute subjects, you can do better than the two photos you posted.

The first is too "flashy" for me with your on camera flash. It also is a bit soft. The crop is also odd with his hands chopped. He's just too centered in this photo to make it interesting.

The second shot has other lighting problems with underexposure and poor lighting on the face leaving the face and eyes dull.

You've been given great advice. Try some natural lighting which is very flattering to babies. Just position them near a large window and shoot away. Not sure which lens to suggest, but your 50mm at f2 should work pretty well for these shots. Take a bunch with the expectation that many will just be discarded in the hopes of finding the one with a good expression and sharp focus.

Keep posting!

Flutist

I just posted another one Mitch, in a new thread, check that one out. I really want to get this right.