second time shooting a baby - C&C please?

KoryJ

Hello all, this is my second time shooting a baby and outdoors is SO much better than the experience I had indoors a couple weeks ago. Can you all give me some C&C about these? Am I on the right path, etc?
I use a D90 and was primarily using the 18-200mm VR lens... I sharpened all of these pictures with the unsharpen mask in PS; should I have to do that to get razor sharp images or am I doing something wrong?thanks!!

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Rest of the photos here pw: MrB

ladytx

Not seeing any of the pictures on my computer.

Scott_Quier

Me too neither - Extracting the photo URLs from the page doesn't even get to them. Have you deleted them?

JAG

all x's here. You might check to see if you have your album set on private settings.

KoryJ

sorry, does it work now?

ladytx

Working now.

Very cute pictures. Love the expression of #4.

KoryJ

Thanks LadyTX

it can also be added to the record that I am new to the PS color-only eyes in #3 and not very good at it and actually don't prefer it all that well... just giving it a try.

Scott_Quier

Welcome to the forum

FWIW - here's some comments:

- Get down on their level - you'll get a lot more keepers and my interesting photos
- I don't usually like SC, but it works pretty well in #3 because you didn't go overboard wtih the saturation of the eyes. However, I think you probably should have stopped down the lens a bit more - his left eye is too much OOF for my taste.
- The other one I almost like is #5 - would have been a very strong image had the focus been on the eyes rather than on the tip of the nose.

Looking forward to seeing more from you!

KoryJ

Thanks Scott, every little bit helps me the next go around. The one with the DOF shallow on his one eye was at f5.6 but I guess I lost the DOF by being zoomed in so tight (150mm). I seem to have trouble switching my focus with the little directional pad on the back of the camera while shooting. I just can't get there fast enough sometimes and miss actions.

Do you guys just let it auto select on what to focus on or do you manually select the area in which to focus? I start a non credit composition class tonight so hopefully I can learn some more of the technicalities...

thanks again!

Scott_Quier

KoryJ wrote:

Thanks Scott, every little bit helps me the next go around. The one with the DOF shallow on his one eye was at f5.6 but I guess I lost the DOF by being zoomed in so tight (150mm). I seem to have trouble switching my focus with the little directional pad on the back of the camera while shooting. I just can't get there fast enough sometimes and miss actions.

From a practical perspective, the DOF is a function of focal length, camera-subject distance, and aperture. So, yup, when you zoomed in, you decreased your DOF.

KoryJ wrote:

Do you guys just let it auto select on what to focus on or do you manually select the area in which to focus? I start a non credit composition class tonight so hopefully I can learn some more of the technicalities...

thanks again!

This is, obviously, controlled by how fast the subject is moving. If the baby isn't moving (only time that happens is when they are strapped into a chair or when they are asleep ), taking the time to use the "proper" single focus point is the way to go.

If they are moving just a little bit, I can sometimes do the focus-and-recompose thing. This only works when you aren't right on top of your subject. If you are right on top of your subject, the small shift in focal plane you get when you recompose may very well throw your selected focus area OOF.

If they are moving quickly, it's time to step back a bit, using center focus point and AI Servo AF. Then I just "spray and pray":D and, when I get your photos on the computer, I crop to taste.

kombizz

very nice capture

KoryJ

Scott_Quier wrote:

If they are moving quickly, it's time to step back a bit, using center focus point and AI Servo AF. Then I just "spray and pray":D and, when I get your photos on the computer, I crop to taste.

Thanks Scott, the insight and knowledge of some of you veterans and pros here is really allowing me to fix mistakes and really learn what to do differently.

heatherfeather

ha ha! I love that! Spray and Pray! Have to remember that.

Scott_Quier

heatherfeather wrote:

ha ha! I love that! Spray and Pray! Have to remember that.

Not a recommended technique in most instances. But, with young ones, you gotta do what you gotta do!

WingsOfLovePhoto

Very cute baby, beautiful eyes. In my opinion I would pay a little more attention to the background. The plain bush or the dirt and the fence, especially straight on doesn't do it for me. As far as the sharpness goes I have found that the 18-200 with its huge focal spread is always quite soft and needs quite a bit of sharpening in photoshop especially when shooting in raw. I bought the 70-200 and still need to sharpen when in raw but much less than the 18-200. I hardly use that lens at all anymore because of it. Keep trying though!

KoryJ

WingsOfLovePhoto wrote:

Very cute baby, beautiful eyes. In my opinion I would pay a little more attention to the background. The plain bush or the dirt and the fence, especially straight on doesn't do it for me. As far as the sharpness goes I have found that the 18-200 with its huge focal spread is always quite soft and needs quite a bit of sharpening in photoshop especially when shooting in raw. I bought the 70-200 and still need to sharpen when in raw but much less than the 18-200. I hardly use that lens at all anymore because of it. Keep trying though!

Thanks for the tips, I'll try and shoot the backgrounds at an angle or something in the future and see how that works.