First Kids Shoot

[thingy]

Well this is my first venture into the Critique forum for some time. Havn't been doing as much photography as usual (hopefully be able to reveal why in the near future - cliffhanger lol). Anyways, here are a couple of my favourites from a recent shoot I did of my niece. This is my first session with kids and believe me, she did not want to stay still....at all! lol. My only regret, which will become apparent on viewing these shots, is that I didn't have/use a paper background and so you can see where I have had to work with the folds etc of the material under the subject. Be glad to hear any feedback.

All taken with Sony Alpha 100 @ ISO100 with a 50mm lens and using home constructed lighting with strobe. Individual settings shown below each photo.


1/60sec @ f/8.0


1/500sec @ f/2.8


1/125sec @ f/5.6

You can see the full shoot at http://www.photonaturally.com/pgall/alejandra2/

G

[Isilwen]

Doesn't she just have the most beautiful curls and smile! Of the shots you posted, I personally like the third one. One thing that I picked up on when I did portraiture was not to have too many props - especially large, brightly colored stuffed animals - because they tend to detract from the focal point. I looked at the entire shoot and love the first close up of her. You can't go wrong when you have a photogenic subject... Fantastic work for a first shoot. Children definitely are a challenge!

[jiminyClickit]

The 'Rules' for this Critique Forum

If there were more details, this would be a good "How I took it." Critique is moving along better with one photo per thread.

[clockdoc]

Hi. I think you did a nice job with your first time photographing kids. They can be a challenge. I appreciate your exposure details but I am a bit confused by the wide variance in exposure values, particular the shutter speeds. You mentioned you used a home-built strobe system. Can you describe it in a little more detail? The reason I asked about the shutter speeds is that electronic flash creates its own stopping power by the very brief duration of the flash. The distance from the flash to the subject determines the f/stop needed for proper exposure while the shutter speed needs to be fast enough to eliminate influence from ambient room light but not so fast as to exceed the camera's flash sync speed. Since you are using a Sony A100 dSLR, I am assuming there is a curtain effect here where one surtain opens, the exposure takes place and the second curtain closes, completing the exposure. Since I have no hands on experience with the Sony dSLR, please correct me if I am off base here. So I hope that explains why I am confused by the three different shutter speeds given. Again, very nice work. I think you have shown a talent for pursuing this line of portraiture in more depth.

[thingy]

Thanks for all your comments so far.

Isilwen - I can see your point about the props and will bear that in mind next time.

Jiminy - Sorry about that. It's been a while since I have posted in the Critique forum and to be honest, I couldn't remember if there was a limit on photos per thread. I checked a couple of other posts and found they had several photos. I consider my hand well and truely slapped

Clockdoc - I was actually just experimenting with different apertures and thinking about how much I wanted sharp and in focus. If you look at the different combinations above, you'll see they equate to the same exposure. As for the faster shutter speeds, my Sony strobe has a High Sync Speed feature that allows shutter speeds faster than 1/125. This allowed me to get the 2.8 aperture. Also, as I was only using the 50mm, my distance from the subject was dictated by the lens. As for my home built lighting, I used the 'tinker tube' pdf file floating around the internet to construct 'Dean Collins' style frames etc.

G

[jiminyClickit]

thingy,

DPS's suggestion. I just agree that it does move along faster, and as you just illustrated, people do see two or more ocassionally and assume it's OK. As I posted somewhere else, there was a new member who started out by posting (I forget exactly) more than a dozen photos in a row. So I just post the "sticky" and let it go from there. Your cute quoitient in these three almost makes it OK.