baby pose in the studio

[burntpixel]

Just received two AB800's and hope to have the bonus room studio up and running this evening :)

In need of some advice though. This studio will be used mainly for taking photos of my 7 month old daughter. Question is do I set her on the floor and lower my tri-pod to her level or do I build a box for elevating her up about three feet or so?

A little info on what I have going on right now. Right now the studio is carpet but soon to be hardwood floors. I am going this morning to purchase a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood to lay over the carpet so I can at least start shooting. My backdrop is paper. I purchased the 53" x 12 yards white roll which I mounted to the ceiling using a crossbar that sets into eye hooks.

Should I build the box for elevation do I pull the paper over or set the box atop covering it with a white sheet? I am concerned of the space between the box and the back drop, don't want to make the box 8' long.

Hope that makes enough sense?

[ccp900]

id rather you shoot the lil rugrat on the floor, floors and babies falling dont usually make for a nice combination...

[whiskaz]

burntpixel,

I mostly agree with ccp, but exercise extreme caution (assistant/mom/dad close by) and you can probably raise her up. It does make getting shots a little easier, since you don't have to be flat on your belly.

I just bought a 70x30" fold out. I have seamless white paper behind it, a white muslin draped over it and a sheet of plexiglass on top of the muslin. I have 1 AB800 with a large oxtabox camera left and silver reflector camera right with another AB800 firing onto the background (with one of those bg shovels from AB - it should serve a different purpose but it's keeping some of the spill off of the subject now). The table is probably 3 feet from the background. I just set this up (the table, paper, plexi) over the weekend.

A couple of quick ones:

http://www.thejonzes.net/gallery2/d/3995-1/_MG_5747.jpg

http://www.thejonzes.net/gallery2/d/3989-1/_MG_5714.jpg

The room I'm shooting in is neither long enough or wide enough. Sometimes I have to use pretty wide angles since I can't back up very far. Not ideal, but the setup works. It only gets harder as they get older too - more mobile, never stopping.

Also, check out this guys work: http://flickr.com/photos/jwlphotography/

Really great stuff and here's his "platform":

http://flickr.com/photos/jwlphotography/501717754/

He gets some excellent results (and he's etremely creative). His subjects also seem to cooperate! :) Good luck.

Oh, I also have carpet. Sucks with seamless, but the table helped for the wee one. I doubt a 7month old would put much of a dent in it on the floor though, if you want to go the super safe route!

ETA: If you look at the exif, you'll notice a newb mistake. I rarely increase my ISO. I was shooting the evening before in low light, iso cranked to 800. Forgot to change it. I should've realized this when I had to drop the power on the lights substantially to shoot at f/10. I noticed in post :P