Home Portraits / Baby - advice needed

[wallisj]

Hi all

We have a baby on the way and obviously would like to get some nice portraits.

Obviously I can use locations like sofas or beds etc.... but i was also hoping to try my hand at something more..

I do love high-key portraits and would like to attempt similar .... but i am assuming i would need to get some kind of additional lighting as well as a white background....

I am not really ready to setup a full blown home studio yet .... am i trying to achieve something not really possible without a significant spend ?

I am in UK so prices tend to be a little more than USA ... i was looking at spending around £200. My wife is open to me getting a background ... lighting might be another matter though :)

Current equipment is basically a 400d, several lenses, a 430ex flashgun (also got a fong lightsphere).

Please help :)

[canonpink]

I would imagine the baby on a white blanket big enough to cover what they will be laying on (i.e. table, floor, etc...) so that the surface isn't cold, but you don't get wrinkle shadows. Then get in a room with a bunch of white, or light colored walls, turn your 430 on manual on full power 1:1 and take a test shot or two and adjust down from there. Test with your Gary Fong and without. Bouncing the light off the ceiling will spread the light well around and will probably eliminate the need for the GF diffuser. What is also helpful if you don't have light walls in the room is to get a couple large pieces of that project foam board (say 3 feet by 3 feet) that is white to use as a reflector and that can work if you angle your flash right. For high key the essence is white background and just enough detail in the face/skin to see the color of the skin with as few shadows as possible around the nose, neck and eyes.

You can always adjust a bit in your photo editing software after.

Get in close with the camera (or by zooming) and you should get something close.

[shutterfiend]

A couple of things I noticed while I was perusing your gear list, you have the nifty listed twice and the Tamron is 17-50.

I'm not a pro at lighting but I couldn't help but notice that you can do a lot of things with your current setup. I'd recommend an off-camera cord ($60 in the US). You could hold the flash out with your left hand with or without the tumbler (commonly referred to as the orang-outang style, pushes shadows off to the right). Images look so much better this way and it's so simple!

[wallisj]

Thanks for the tips so far .... i would also like to do some adults as well as the baby ... so i was thinking of investing in a white background as we don't have much clean bright wall surface in the house.

The off-shoe cord also sounds good

[Amorous]

Although high key shots with white background are nice, I personally think that black background is also an excellent choice when shooting babies. I used natural light for these shots.

[Hangerhead]

amorous, the first shot looks like it has a little banding - is that due to compression?

i love the white glow on the babies skin.
was it shot to over expose slightly?