Some snaps of my girls swinging today

photogmomma

I've been taking so many photos of other kids lately and not paying enough attention to my own. I just got off a few shots, but I thought they were a fun! I was in a contrasty mood, can you tell?

Ellie - 4 years old

She looks so thoughtful here! ("How do I pump the swing?!?")


Ahhh, that moody look. She's not a moody child normally, but has gone through some major 4 year old moodiness lately!


This is her! I love her smiles, but it's so hard to get a natural one from her - she loves hamming a bit too much right now. Pure joy. The result of an under-dog!


Sammie - 2 years old

Bored with swinging? Or really wanting to "blast off"? (That's when mom counts 3-2-1 and pulls her really high by the legs and lets go!)


Another pure joy shot - a little soft - f/2.8 and AI Servo may not be the best combo. Whoops! LOL! Oh, and this is not an under-dog, but rather an "under the dog". :rofl


Hard to tell in a B&W, but those are the most amazing blue eyes... Still amazing, but so blue it's unreal sometimes!


Thanks for letting me share.

Some of them are a little soft because of the shallow DOF with f/2.8, but frankly, these were more testing AI Servo than anything else. All in all, I"m sort of surprised and happy with how clear they are! Fast shutter speeds will do that for you, I guess. Next time, I'll get a bigger DOF and get more in focus!

Any and all CC and suggestions for AI Servo are most appreciated!

gpphotos

i really dig the shallow dof actually. the smallest i'd shoot these at is F/4 just to make sure the whole face and hair is all in focus. you got some really wonderful images! good conversions too. did you add vignetting to the 3rd image? its a tad much for my taste, i love the way the light is hitting her hair and that much vignetting kinda conflict with that a bit i think. its spot on in the first image though.

Elaine

Awww...these are precious! Great conversions, as usual, and wonderful moments and expressions captured! Looks like a great day!

leaforte

Cool shots! Every one of them made me smile. Thanks for sharing.

jeffreaux2

These are all very classic looking, but #4 and 6 are my favorires. Very nice!!

AIServo can be finicky unless paired with a USM lens. These look awesome as far as that goes. Not sure how you went about it, but this is where the continuos burst shutter comes in handy as well. Thanks for sharing.

Mitchell

#3 and #5 are excellent. You've got this down. I've given up trying to get a decent photo on swings!

kenlyne

Beautiful girls, beautiful captures and great b/w conversions!! You captured the emotions of the moments which can be hard to do w/ children and get a clear picture (especially on swings!)--I think they're fantastic!

1220

I just loved #1. Nice capture

photogmomma

gpphotos wrote:

i really dig the shallow dof actually. the smallest i'd shoot these at is F/4 just to make sure the whole face and hair is all in focus. you got some really wonderful images! good conversions too. did you add vignetting to the 3rd image? its a tad much for my taste, i love the way the light is hitting her hair and that much vignetting kinda conflict with that a bit i think. its spot on in the first image though.

Thank you! Yeah, I'm realizing that I should have used something like f/4. While I don't mind the hair being out of focus, when it's 2.8, the eyes go out of focus SO fast from the swinging. Honestly, I was more playing around and ended up being surprised at how well these turned out!

As for the 3rd image, yeah, I did some vignetting - but not really on purpose. I use LR and have a preset I used on all of these. Because they were exposed correctly, I just did the preset and went on my merry way - and didn't even realize that it had a vignette built in until you mentioned it! I will eventually replace that photo with one like you recommend - I agree, it does look better.

Thanks again!

Elain wrote:

Awww...these are precious! Great conversions, as usual, and wonderful moments and expressions captured! Looks like a great day!

Yup! Definitely a great day.... Well, great end to a whiny, crabby day anyway! !

Thanks so much.

leaforte wrote:

Cool shots! Every one of them made me smile. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you so much! I'm so glad they made you smile, too.

jeffreaux2 wrote:

These are all very classic looking, but #4 and 6 are my favorires. Very nice!!

AIServo can be finicky unless paired with a USM lens. These look awesome as far as that goes. Not sure how you went about it, but this is where the continuos burst shutter comes in handy as well. Thanks for sharing.

This is definitely a USM lens - it's the Sigma 70-200 and I love it. They are only a *tiny* bit soft - just one or two in the eyes. But I didn't even thing burst mode.

Mitchell wrote:

#3 and #5 are excellent. You've got this down. I've given up trying to get a decent photo on swings!

Thank you so much! Maybe try what I did for the first time - a longer lens. I got further away, zoomed way in (for most of them) and found that it was easier to move my lens and the focus was faster because it was a smaller change than up close....

Thanks again!

kenlyne wrote:

Beautiful girls, beautiful captures and great b/w conversions!! You captured the emotions of the moments which can be hard to do w/ children and get a clear picture (especially on swings!)--I think they're fantastic!

I think this is my first truly successful try at swing shots so I'm really pleased everyone likes them! Thank you!

1220 wrote:

I just loved #1. Nice capture

That's probably my fave, too... Thanks!

urbanaries

Awww, great series, Andi! always love seeing the girls grow up. I think I love #1 the best, but they're all precious and wonderful. Just a thought, if the color of Sammie's eyes is so lovely why don't we ever get to see them in color? :hide

photogmomma

urbanaries wrote:

Awww, great series, Andi! always love seeing the girls grow up. I think I love #1 the best, but they're all precious and wonderful. Just a thought, if the color of Sammie's eyes is so lovely why don't we ever get to see them in color? :hide

Because you are just not worthy!

! Seriously, I think it's because I just dont' show them that much. I have a ton of her in color with those amazing eyes, but don't show 'em that often....

Thanks so much, Lynne!

Scott_Quier

I love these. I really, really like #3 - her smile just lit up my day! Thanks so much for sharing!

photogmomma

Scott_Quier wrote:

I love these. I really, really like #3 - her smile just lit up my day! Thanks so much for sharing!

Thank you so much! She can really light up a day - or really darken it - especially right before nap time. !

Thank you!

canonguy

I absolutely love these pictures. I always work to get my BW pics to look like this. The high contrast shows richness and detail. But when I do it, my pics end up looking harsh. How do you convert your pics to BW? Do you use the channel mixed method? What ratios of R, G, and B converted to monochrome do you use (if you use the channel mixed)?

photogmomma

canonguy wrote:

I absolutely love these pictures. I always work to get my BW pics to look like this. The high contrast shows richness and detail. But when I do it, my pics end up looking harsh. How do you convert your pics to BW? Do you use the channel mixed method? What ratios of R, G, and B converted to monochrome do you use (if you use the channel mixed)?

Thanks! I really appreciate it!

I use LR to do all my conversions. I found PS to be too complicated for my small brain with everythign you can do. (Not saying it can't be done better that way, though! !) I have a few presets I use. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. They worked really well in this case, though, from what others are saying...

If you want to PM me or email me at tippiepics@gmail.com, I'll be more than happy to send you my presets and tell you which I used. It's been a while since I've created it so I can't remember exactly what I did.

HTH!

Nacho

Gorgeous!
Truly beautiful daughters and precious shots. Those are great captures indeed, especially for moving subjects! : ) Even in the "moody" expression shot the deeper feeling I get is one of safety, contentment, and joy. All the best to your family.

Which preset in LR are you using? The BW conversion is darn good, I like very much that smooth look.

Gassho,

N

photogmomma

Nacho wrote:

Truly beautiful daughters and precious shots. Those are great captures indeed, especially for moving subjects! : ) Even in the "moody" expression shot the deeper feeling I get is one of safety, contentment, and joy. All the best to your family.

Which preset in LR are you using? The BW conversion is darn good, I like very much that smooth look.

Gassho,

N

Thank you so much!

The preset I'm using is one called "B&W - Contrasty" - one I made myself from another one. But for the life of me I can't remember where I found it. I actually use it quite a bit, but it's super contrasty (too much) in most circumstances and I'll back it off some... Feel free to email me if you want it!

Thanks again!

Giselle

I love these, #1 is my favorite!