some VERY BASIC advice needed

ktdid

A friend asked me to take photos of her family...the idea is that they end up with a handful of shots they can use for Christmas cards and gifts for the grandparents.

Bearing in mind that I am not especially fantastic at this (my friend knows this and likes me anyway), what advice (very basic, please!) can you offer?

Basic details:
4 people - mom, dad, and two girls (ages 6 and 2 1/2)
to be shot in the late afternoon (my idea - I guess I know something) in a wooded park (fall colors)
Nikon D80 w/Tamron 15 - 50 and Nikon 70 - 300

I thank you in advance for your help!

Fishead

couple things to think about...
If the photo is about the people being photographed and not the location, be sure the background is not distracting, preferably out of focus.

If possible suggest everyone avoid wearing white, otherwise you may have to use flash to get proper exposure for the faces without blowing out the whites.

Remember a shallow dof means everyone must be in the same plane to be in focus, sometimes six inches is the difference between sharp and fuzzy.

The above comments are from my observations of my own failures! Hope they help a little. allen

www.allensklar.smugmug.com

Brieyasmom

A little something
I am kinda new to photography as well but for me the best advice I find myself taking ( and its not technical cause I am still trying to figure all that out) is go to other peoples websites and look at poses. Its hard with little kids but fun - get some poses in mind that you like and take LOTS of pictures!!! not much for advice but makes all the difference when trying to go quickly to keep a 2 year old participating willingly

Mr. 2H2O

Another key point is to watch your light color for consistency. You plan to shoot late in the day which yields yellow/orange light from the sun and you plan to shoot in a wooded area which yields blue light in shade.

If you choose to shoot raw, and visualize light in similar color casts in your composition, you can have some latitude to work the white balance in post to make the skin tones balance with the rest of the composition.

Also pay attention to the aperture of your lenses. Normal subjects seem more impressed with out of focus backgrounds. If your lenses don't open up very much, try a setting where the background is more distant from your subjects.

A common focal length used for portraiture is around 100mm in 35mm format. Its a very technical "why", but it does give you a place to start.

- Mike

Scott_Quier

In addition to shooting RAW, watching the temperature/color of the light, etc .... you also need to pay some attention to the quality of the light.

Generally speaking, shooting in the last couple of hours before sundown is a good idea . The light is usually more flattering to everyone. Shooting under a partial over-cast or lightly hazy cloud cover is another way to get nice soft light outdoors.

Watch for dappled light on your subjects. The dappling is caused by light filtering though/around the leaves of the trees. You need to look for these EVERY time your subjects move.

Using the sun as your main light can lead to squinty faces - usually not very attractive which is way I usually face my models/clients/subjects away from the sun.

Using the sun for a back/side light - makes a really great hair light, etc will leave the faces dark. So you will need some way to fill those shadows. An external flash is a one good way. Another is to get an assistant to hold a large reflector so you can bounce some spill (that's sunlight) back into their faces.

If you use flash, you may want to investigate putting a gel (either CTO or CTS if your ambient is warm, CTB if you are in cool shadow) on your flash to help it more more closely approximate that of your ambient. If you are shooting RAW and your flash is a little cooler than the ambient, correcting the flash illumination in post will yield a nicely warmed photo - can be a nice effect.

HTH

KoryJ

I'm kind of in the same boat of know feeling like i know what poses to put people in, what looks good, etc.
I don't have the self confidence built up yet.
A question for those of you that shoot weddings... do you guys shoot straight manual or are you on auto or maybe aperture priority mode. I usually have to dilly dally with settings for what I exactly want to dial in and I think I wouldn't have time for that though in a fast paced environment such as a wedding.

Scott_Quier

KoryJ wrote:

I'm kind of in the same boat of know feeling like i know what poses to put people in, what looks good, etc.
I don't have the self confidence built up yet.
A question for those of you that shoot weddings... do you guys shoot straight manual or are you on auto or maybe aperture priority mode. I usually have to dilly dally with settings for what I exactly want to dial in and I think I wouldn't have time for that though in a fast paced environment such as a wedding.

Indoors, where light doesn't change much (or at least not quickly), I shot with camera on manual. When I use on-camera flash, which isn't often, I use ETT-L most of the time.

Outdoors, I use Av as getting the right DOF is very important and the shutter speed will usually be in range. Again, the flash is usually ETT-L. When I shoot manual flash (i.e. strobist style), it's either Av or Manual.

I can't remember the last time I shot Tv, P, or green box

HTH

KoryJ

Thanks Scott, it's great to pick some of your brains!