Family Christmas pics - 1st Time have ????

[vr6pwns_me]

Taking a few pictures for a family on Saturday inside by a fireplace. My lights will just be my 2 speed lights, SB-600's (yes I shoot Nikon but I like you guys!)

Anywho, how should I go about setting up the lights and what, in general will typically work best for this type of setting?

Also they have a new baby, born in June or July, so I'm not sure how to really capture the baby if they want pictures of it alone (forgot if its a boy or girl)...

Thanks in advance!

[canonnoob]

do you have reflectors?

if so thats good.. if not its good also... i would go one camera right and camera left. Depend on the backdrop I would position on High camera left or right (your choice) pointing down (almost like a hairlight) and the other right about the same height that you would be shooting with the camera (of course on the opposite side but close to the camera)

[vr6pwns_me]

Do not have reflectors, yet. If I keep up with these family shoots and they spread the word I may be in business!

What kind of settings am I looking at using? I know it's going to depend on the lights they have inside the house and/or windows, but for a general case, what might I be looking at? Should I leave the lights in i-TTL or should I set them manually?

[Dennis_Hammer]

Also shhot raw so you can expose for the subjects and later change the exposure for the fireplace to combine the two will give you a much overall look to the picture. The fireplace may back light the subjects making them dark and the expose for the subjects may blow out the fireplace so Raw will let you get both and will be much easier to combine later.

[vr6pwns_me]

The fireplace wasnt lit. And I am so pissed at my computer because i have a special-ed version of CS2 and it doesnt have the RAW plug in so I have steered away from shooting RAW for a while. (Yes it sucks and I hate it and want to shoot more RAW). I have my new computer now but need to find a Photoshop program for it with all the correct stuff.

Needless, I had to shoot it in JPEG fine and I can see in some the WB was very strange, hopefully I can do something with them later...

[andyc100]

I thought you could convert raw with cs2, is it not a case of downloading the plugin from the adobe site?

you can also put jpegs through the converter and adjust wb, select file in bridge/browser and press "cntl r"

I always converted raw when I used cs2, or does the special-ed have something to do with it! (not heard of that other than the trial versions)

Andy

[vr6pwns_me]

I thought you could convert raw with cs2, is it not a case of downloading the plugin from the adobe site?

you can also put jpegs through the converter and adjust wb, select file in bridge/browser and press "cntl r"

I always converted raw when I used cs2, or does the special-ed have something to do with it! (not heard of that other than the trial versions)

Andy
Its pretty much a cracked version, so apparently it was missing things because I tried shooting raw and it seemed as if the computer and nothing else would recognize it. But now that I have my new computer I'm gonna do it all the right way haha