Two little angels

jethibod

Did a shoot with some friends the other night to capture some holiday pics of their girls; again - kids are tough!! I had rented a lens to try it out (24-70 f/2.8) which may not have been the best idea...I guess it's a good idea to know the lens a bit before you go out shooting? Anyway, I guess I'm relatively happy with the shots I got, although the lighting was a bit off...this is the best of the bunch:



This was done with an umbrella set up camera right, using it as a reflector. The rest had some shadowing that I wasn't too pleased with, and I'm not sure where I should have placed my light. Any suggestions would be great!

Thanks,
Jen

ivar

Hi Jen

Opinions vary on whether it is a good thing to try new lenses during shoots, but I prefer to have at least some shooting with it. Every lens can be a bit different in some ways. Doesn't mean that you shouldn't try and rent other lenses! It's a great way to get to know them, and the 24-70 is a really nice one, I think.

The photo. Exposure seems good, the red with the balls give a very 'xmassy' atmosphere which is what you were going for, I think, so that's all good.

I'm not too crazy about the direction the faces and eyes are looking in. It's definitely not always a rule that people have to have their eyes in the direction of the lens, but I think for this type of shot (kids, mostly for the parents, etc...) it would have been an improvement. I'm not sure what it is the kids are looking at, but what you can try next time is have on of the parents (or someone else) stand close to/behind you and have him/her help you get the kids to look at your direction

Do you have more from this shoot that we can have a look at?


EDIT: be careful also on how close you frame the head/feet in shots like this. You're going to loose a bit of the shot with printing (http://www.smugmug.com/help/bleed-trim this is specific for SmugMug printing but it happens everywhere) and some frames that you put photos in cover up a bit also.

jethibod

ivar wrote:

I'm not too crazy about the direction the faces and eyes are looking in. It's definitely not always a rule that people have to have their eyes in the direction of the lens, but I think for this type of shot (kids, mostly for the parents, etc...) it would have been an improvement. I'm not sure what it is the kids are looking at, but what you can try next time is have on of the parents (or someone else) stand close to/behind you and have him/her help you get the kids to look at your direction

Do you have more from this shoot that we can have a look at?

Ivar, thank you for the feedback - I really do appreciate it.

Re: eye direction - mom and dad spent most of the shoot directly behind me, jumping up and down to make the girls smile; this was the best lit of the bunch for some reason, so I wanted a bit of CC on that. There were many where the girls were looking at the camera, but the lighting isn't as nice (*le sigh*). I have several others, but can't access them from work, so I'll post them tonight when I get home. Maybe you could give me a bit more feedback in terms of lighting from those ones.

Again, thanks so much for the feedback; I know mom and dad will be happy with the shots, but I am happy to have some objective thoughts.