First baby portrait shoot - your feedback is much appreciated!

[lerabu]

Hi all,

We have a small daughter and you can imagine that the camera has been trigger happy for the past three months since she was born

Here is my personal choice of best shot from a little shoot we had in our flast.

The lightning conditions were really bad as we had bad light only from above. I tried to make the scene a little more itneresting with a colourful cotton diaper below her and the hangers behind her. Of course, as a parent, shooting only the child is the most interesting thing!

I am looking for your feedback on the following points:
- Composition
- Lighting
- Eye contact (good enough?)
- Noise removal - is the trade off between noise removal and blurring OK? I used the Lightroom 3 noise removal tool. It is quite nice! The D80 starts to have serious noise issues above ISO 800.
- any other post processing tips you might have

EXIF:
Camera Nikon D80
Exposure 0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture f/3.2
Focal Length 50 mm
ISO Speed 1000
Exposure Bias -2/3 EV
Flash No Flash
Exposure Program Aperture-priority AE


I haven't had much time on the forums lately due to a new job, I hope to be able to give you people feedback on your shots very soon!

[ccting]

Those who join the weekly assignments are very great in phototaking, and you should see how they take photos. Most of the time i am blocked from seeing flickr images.

Composition:
Lines has strong influence of photo, and therefore, lines can form good composition.
a) Horizontal line: should be at 1/3 or 2/3 unless both sides are same of important. Usually at 1/3 from bottom because of theory of gravity.

b) Vertical line: The vertical line is strong line influenced by gravity. It drag the eyes of viewer from top to bottom, and supported by horizontal line. That is to say, to make the viewers to see most of the space of the image, the horizontal line should be at 1/3 bottom. It could be even at lower part depending there is very least interest of the bed. However, the vertical lines discontinue in your image..

c) Color composition. You need to study the color wheel and different types of color harmony. Yellow stands out from black. You have white and yellow background, and for me, it is hard to find suitable color that pop your baby out. That will be "weak" color composition. Wearing black color shirt will "pop in" your baby, which is bad.

d) Feel of depth. Blur is one of many ways to express the feel of depth. However, the eyes must be sharpest as the eyes are the window of soul. The secondary is the lips. The rest could be blur, particulary for older adults who wants their skin looks smooth. Two eyes and lips, will form a triangle plane, and your camera angle should 90 degree to that plane, ensuring eyes and lips are sharp enough with widest aperture at low light.

e) Most of people read text or anything from left top corner. Even though you have vertical lines at background, diagonal line from left top edge may look stronger in leading eyes. Hence, adjust your camera so that his leg at left top corner, and his head at right bottom corner, may propose a better composition. The vertical lines at background may form another form of pattern diagonal lines.While you are doing this, you need to understand the golden mean ratio 1:1.61 or finnacci division, when diving the head, tossue and legs.

f) Standard portrait length: full length, 2/3 and 1/3. For full length, dun cut any part of his, (you have cut his foot i think).

g) Negative space (empty space): Put horizontal line at 1/3 from bottom, decreasing the negative White space at bottom. Try to fill the frame to reduce negative space so the impact to the image will not significant.

h) Gesture : Make him laugh and ready to shot

i) tone: Convert to black white using lightroom, and you should able to see intensy different between your baby and surrounding. If not, darken or lighten for different. that will be better tone contrast composition.

Lighting
========
a) Never use flash on baby. That's why my d5100 which has baby mode has flash disabled. The guide number for your flash is 42 feet, which is stronger than D5100, will blind your baby.

b) Increase your aperture to widest open (smaller f-number e.g f1.8), and that will increase the brightness for about 3 times. Increase eposure bias to positive value. With this, you will decrease the ISO Speed to about 333, which give you better quality of image. Consider using delayed exposure, and tripod ;D.

c) Try use a small watt warm bulb, covered with tissue, as long as it is safe, you can use to bring more light at the right angle. If you have external flash, fire at ceiling or wall instead, lets the light bound back to baby. Never use in-camera flash.

d) I believe you have sun reflector in the car, use that to reflect some light ..give it a try.
Noise level:
I try lightroom 3 noise removal, and if it does not give perfect result if the noise level is too high. Decrease your aperture, or bring more light, or decrease your shutter speed with tripod may give you better options. Try to shoot daytime instead of nighttime..

Anyway, i am very new to photography as D5100 that i bought 23 June 2011 is my first camera.. Have fun. Some comments may wrong.

[EmyB]

Beautiful baby and beautiful expression captured. Nice and sharp on the eyes.

Personally I think if you went in closer to her, and had a shallower depth of field (if you can), the composition might work better. I know you added the blanket for interest but I actually think it looks a little distracting.

But it's a gorgeous shot in general.

[graciousness]

Hello there and it's been a while - I do remember your previous posts a few months ago. Congrats on the baby, by the way!

Lighting - I need to ask this - do you have an external flash? The problem with this photo is yes, the lighting, and if you couldn't find a room or space where you can utilise a natural light source, only flash can help you with this. Otherwise, find a window where natural comes in and take her photos there.

Composition - it's ok,but could really improve. I think you can do a tight crop as she does have a cute little expression on it that is lost from 1) lack of light around her eyes; (2) all those yellow around and the colourful diaper cloth underneath her. You have to remember that simple is better; adding colourful objects on and around your subject will actually take away from the focus of your image, which is your baby. It would have been a lot better if she was just on that plain, white sheet and without the yellow hangers behind her.

Eye contact - could it be better? Yes. Is it good enough? Yes, too. It's not easy getting babies and children engaged with the camera and sometimes, you can only take what they can give. Her expression is cute in this photo, but it could be better if her head was up. Although at 3 months - this could be a huge task for such a young baby Great thinking about eye contact, though, and great to see that you do have this in mind when taking her photos! Would be great to see more close up shots where you can see her face better.

Talk about eyes, she has dark eyes like my little toddler and it's quite hard to get clear shots of their eyes when they're so dark. Hence, it's important to shoot where there is ample light around the face and eyes otherwise, flash is the go, or use of reflector if there is a good light source to reflect from.

Can't comment on noise removal with Lightroom as I don't use it You can, however, improve this photo immensely by adding more exposure in post processing, dodging her eye area to bring them more out, crop tighter, and play around with white balance as overall, her skin tones a little bit too red, I think (on my monitor, anyway). Play around with levels in Lightroom and you'll be amazed with what you can do to improve this photo. I've had a very quick play in my aperture just to show what increasing the exposure will do alone to improve this and I've attached it for your reference. I hope you don't mind I've done this; I'll remove it per your request should you wish me to do it.

Ok, I think I've given you enough headache with my post now. Hope this has been of some help. Remember - keep her photos clean and simple - less clutter and colour around her, the better!

Cheers and congrats again!

Grace.

[ccting]

Hmm.. try to recolor the vertical lines at the back to black or dark grey.. that will be better i think .. . Or.. convert to B&W or sepia.. and see the result? this could eliminate the distracting bright colors from non-main subject.. OR, using lightroom turn everything except the baby into B&W by setting minimum values to contrast, saturation, sharpness, clarity etc etc.

[BK553]

Originally Posted by ccting

a) Never use flash on baby. That's why my d5100 which has baby mode has flash disabled. The guide number for your flash is 42 feet, which is stronger than D5100, will blind your baby.

This is a myth. Flash photography will not blind a baby, adult or animal. They might not like it, but you won't cause any damage. You should always diffuse or bounce your flash anyway for portraits though.

[ccting]

Based on my calculation, assume the exposure is 100% correct without flash or lighting props
EV = 5.68

Your camera setting (shutter speed and f-number) is for Home interiors (EV= 5~7)

Therefore, according to the exposure value table found in wikipedia (general case), you have done the right exposure for combination use of shutter speed and f-number, since you are shooting baby in a room.

Based on further calculation,
Speed , f number , ISO
50 , 3.2 , 1000 (When ISO = 1000, f-number = 3.2, Shutter speed = 1/50)
65.306122449 , 2.8 , 1000
88.8888888889 , 2.4 , 1000
128 , 2 , 1000
158.024691358 , 1.8 , 1000
261.2244897959 , 1.4 , 1000
40 , 3.2 , 800 (ISO = 800, f=3.2, Speed = 1/40)
52.2448979592 , 2.8 , 800
71.1111111111 , 2.4 , 800
102.4 , 2 , 800
126.4197530864 , 1.8 , 800
208.9795918367 , 1.4 , 800
30 , 3.2 , 600
39.1836734694 , 2.8 , 600
53.3333333333 , 2.4 , 600
76.8 , 2 , 600
94.8148148148 , 1.8 , 600
156.7346938776 , 1.4 , 600
20 , 3.2 , 400
26.1224489796 , 2.8 , 400
35.5555555556 , 2.4 , 400
51.2 , 2 , 400
63.2098765432 , 1.8 , 400
104.4897959184 , 1.4 , 400 (when ISO = 400, f-number = 1.4, Shutter speed = 1/104)
10 , 3.2 , 200
13.0612244898 , 2.8 , 200
17.7777777778 , 2.4 , 200
25.6 , 2 , 200
31.6049382716 , 1.8 , 200 (I believe your 50mm prime len has f1.8, try this: ISO = 200, f=1.8, speed = 1/32 )
52.2448979592 , 1.4 , 200

All above settings have the same "brightness" of the taken pic.

[istephallard]

Your baby is beautiful and the yellow is so sunny and sweet! Overall I like the photo but there are a couple things I would agree on with the above comments to make your good photo great. I agree that you could probably crop in a little closer to remove some of the extra space below baby and that the blanket under baby is a little distracting (for future). I'd probably lighten it up by increasing your exposure in your photo editing. In the future opening up your aperture (smaller number) could help brighten things up but then you are also risking perhaps not having things in focus that you may want (especially when baby becomes a real mover!) I realize my comments are similar to many of the above.

[ccting]

Originally Posted by BK553

This is a myth. Flash photography will not blind a baby, adult or animal. They might not like it, but you won't cause any damage. You should always diffuse or bounce your flash anyway for portraits though.

This is the expert's words from international medical journal
"
A While long exposure to bright light could cause permanent damage to a newborn's eyes, the brief burst of light from a camera flash is harmless, says George S. Ellis Jr., M.D., an associate clinical professor of ophthalmology and pediatrics at both Tulane and Louisiana State universities. "It's so quick that the amount of light put out isn't enough to be dangerous."

To be on the safe side, stay about a foot away from your newborn when taking a flash photograph, Dr. Ellis says. But rest assured that even though Baby has young eyes, her peepers aren't affected by the flash any differently than yours would be. And don't worry that you'll need to limit the number of pictures you snap--the time it takes for the flash to recharge is plenty of time for eyes to recover. Say cheese! ===By Lisa Flam "

~~~~~~~~



Even though they are not dangerous, i am sure that in future, he/she needs to wear spec to correct some of their minor eye sensor disorder...It basically talk about damage but not mentioning about the side effects for long run. 1 foot away? Probably he does not understand the guide number of flash..and they are different for different cameras. Usually, we will shot more than one.. hahaha then the eyes can't recover and we need to wear spec.

Slow flash sync, stroke flash,, more than 1 flash==> eyes can't recover..

See the portrait e-book cover page by this webpage, vertical lines is good for portrait. They are strong leading lines from top to bottom as the frame orientation is vertical. These lines lead to the subject
http://www.digital-photography-schoo...eslayout-4.jpg