How to get that smooth look

[bepell]

I took some pictures of my kids last night in the house and they just didnt turn out right.

Their faces were harsh and had shadows. i used the portrait setting, but i didnt get the desired effect.

I want the kids faces to look smooth, like you see in headshots.

I am using a Nikon D50, with a 18-55mm lens and I have a 52mm polarizer to add on.

A few questions:

1. How can i get that smooth skin look in low lighting as it would be in my home at night and in the day.

2. Am i supposed to use a longer shutter speed, with a iso of 800 in low light settings?
If its in the day time, do i use a long shutter speed with an iso of 200?

3. When i use a tripod, isnt there a way to view the subject before i shoot, instead of looking in the viewer?

Here is sample of a picture that i took outdoors.

[OsmosisStudios]

a few questions

1: Are you using the built-in pop-up flash on the D50?
2: What is the full exif (iso, shutter speed, aperture, focal length, etc)?
3: did you have the circular polarizer on?

Strictly speaking, getting the "smooth skin" look is done with light modifiers used on an external flash mounted to a light stand. These are things like umbrellas and softboxes, like you remember from getting your picture taken in school and the like. This answers your question #1

#2: If youre using flash, you can usually get away with minimum iso (ie 100 or 200) because the flash is throwing all its weight around and doing the heavy lifting. Your only job is to make sure it comes out okay Using 800iso on a shot with flash is just adding noise for no reason and will hurt rather than help. As for shutter speed, always remember the rule of thumb: 1/focal length is the minimum, especially with flash. Flash allows you to really get those short (1/200s) shutter speeds to freeze things and make them razor sharp. So, if youre shooting at 55mm, you should be using at least 1/60s. Of course, I'd recommend twice as fast (1/125).

#3: The D50 doesnt support liveview, so no, when you have the camera mounted to the tripod, you have to use the viewfinder just like every other time. SOme of the higher-end (D700, D3) and newer (D5000, D90) cameras have the live view function.