My son

[OAB]

My first time posting here! I love this picture but it doesn't look quite right -- too centered and too washed out I think. Any suggestions on how to improve it? It was taken indoors in the afternoon with no flash.



Edited to include shot info:
Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XSi
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/10 sec
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 49mm

[windrider86]

I think part of the problem is that the eyes are not in focus. Thats a pretty important factor when doing portraits. Depending on where you were focusing could be the culprit. You might try changing your aperature.
Cropping it down a tad may halep as well

[dhart]

Originally Posted by windrider86

I think part of the problem is that the eyes are not in focus. You might try changing your aperature.

I was also trying to find the focal plane and was having a hard time with it. I think the problem is less of the aperture (it was set at 5.6, so that shouldn't have been too much of a problem unless he was focusing on the floor) and more of a shutter speed issue. The EXIF said that it was at 1/10. That is awfully slow for shooting children. Even seemingly still ones. Whenever I shoot kids, I don't go longer than 1/125 or so. That could just be me and not holding still, but between holding the camera and shooting fidgety kids, I use about 1/125 as my longest shutter.

As for lighting, it looks like the source is from the top right corner. If you can get him to look towards the source, you can get some of the light in his eyes and really make them pop.

[OAB]

Yeah, it looks like I was focused on his forehead rather than his eyes. I didn't really notice they were out of focus, just that something wasn't right.

I know 1/10 is generally too slow for children, but it was indoors, afternoon, and I didn't want to wash out the light coming from the window by using the flash. Any suggestion on what I could've done differently? I only have the on-camera flash right now. Would having a flash angled off the ceiling give me enough light to use a decent shutter speed but not so much that I lose my light from the window?