What I have learned....

[NicoleScraps]

In reading here and in a book that I bought, I think I am ready for a practice run with portraits. Luckily, I have six kids to practice with and I am going to have a practice photoshoot with my oldest daughter and her boyfriend this weekend before they head back to college.
Here are my plans, technically speaking. We'll see if I can pull it off and end up with photos that actually look nice.

We are having the shoot outside in the park at 5:30 in the evening. So I'll have some full sun and some shade to work with.
I plan to use AV mode.
The settings that I have planned are 100 iso in the sun, 200 iso in the shade.
I learned about white balance and how to change that on my camera. I have an overcast setting 6000k, an open shade setting 7000k, and a daylight setting 5000k. I guess I will have to switch back and forth as needed.
I set my focus mode to one shot, and set my focus point to the center. I plan to focus on the faces with the center point in my viewfinder then recompose the shot as necessary while holding the focus...that is, until I get more comfortable and can use the other focus points.
I plan to use my 55-250 mm lens and zoom in a little as necessary. I have read that with the 18-55mm lens (my only other one) if you are taking really close shots of the face you can get some distortion and that is better to move a bit further away and use a bit of a zoom.
I plan to use the largest aperture possible with just one person in the photo, maybe not the largest, but around f 5.6 or so. Changing it to f/7.1 or f 8 to get both of them in focus. Will 5.6 work well with two in the photo? Or will the person farthest in the background be TOO blurry? I guess I just need to test it all out.

I am also going to try to make a reflector as recommended to me in another thread. Actually two, maybe, a white one and a shiny one. I suppose those should be placed outside of the frame somewhere aimed towards the face?

I really want to play with some backlight shots, I suppose in that case, I might need fill flash for the face?
Rambling a little bit here, I know. Just trying to cover my bases technically, at least.
Any other tips you can add here?
I will definitely post pics when I am done.

[zona5101]

well good on you for having a plan! And it seems pretty sound to me. The full sun shots will be tough but give it a go - usually the shadows are too strong in direct sun, people squint etc. But your shade and backlit shots should ensure you have some images in more favorable lighting. As far as the backlit shots you can use fill flash or use your reflector to provide the fill.

Good luck and be sure to post your results.

[OsmosisStudios]

There are a lot of things here that could have to change, namely your metering settings (Iso, aperture, shutter speed). other than that, looks good