More 1st pictures :)

[LaurenAdams]

More portraits of kids in the family. There are 17 kids between my husbands and my family. Geeeez. All the better, all are cute and none are camera shy. hehe

1.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3468/3181141840_b150721d9e.jpg?v=0

2.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3384/3183431915_33c282f8b5.jpg?v=0

3.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3497/3180303397_85b1b8a1b6.jpg?v=0

4.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3364/3181142016_a8ee5456d1.jpg?v=0

5.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3101/3180303545_7258ff879b.jpg?v=0

6.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3349/3181142138_13893e968b.jpg?v=0

7.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3096/3180303593_0e052c6d70.jpg?v=0

8.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3107/3181188464_75b9b2d189.jpg?v=0

[digital_girl]

The colors are amazing!! You captured some great smiles :) Nice work!!

[JeffreyG]

These are nice, you appear to be seeking out nivce diffuse lighting and the exposures are good.

About the only thing I'd point out to you is that you tend to clip off the tops of heads. I also get a strong feeling in photos 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8 that there is a eyeball exactly lined up with one of the focus points. In 1,2 and 8 especially this centers the one eye which bias the rest of the subject to one side a little. There is nothing wrong with placing the subject off-center (probably a good idea in a lot of photos) but these are kind of in no-man's land between centered and off-center.

[LaurenAdams]

About the only thing I'd point out to you is that you tend to clip off the tops of heads. I also get a strong feeling in photos 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8 that there is a eyeball exactly lined up with one of the focus points. In 1,2 and 8 especially this centers the one eye which bias the rest of the subject to one side a little. There is nothing wrong with placing the subject off-center (probably a good idea in a lot of photos) but these are kind of in no-man's land between centered and off-center.

Thanks for your input. Yes, I realize I cut off the tops of heads. Unfortunately, it's by design and I warned the family of this in advance when I sent out these pics so they wouldnt be alarmed.

Assuming I didn't know I lined up eyeballs by one of the focus points and it was not by design, how would I not do this since it seems to be completely unconcious behavior? :)

[JeffreyG]

Thanks for your input. Yes, I realize I cut off the tops of heads. Unfortunately, it's by design and I warned the family of this in advance when I sent out these pics so they wouldnt be alarmed.

Assuming I didn't know I lined up eyeballs by one of the focus points and it was not by design, how would I not do this since it seems to be completely unconcious behavior? :)

Don't ask me, I do it too!:D

One trick I use is to focus manually using a good quality focus screen that is designed to aid manually focussing. The EE-S screen in my 5D makes manual focussing easy, and since it works everywhere I can stop matching focus points to anything.

Another tip is to start making it a habit to watch the edges of the viewfinder for each shot. I have to still try and police myself for this one a lot, but just doing more shooting and being more comfortable with your process will help.

Most of the time you are shooting in one place and the lighting will be quite uniform and constant (especially outdoors). In such situations I like to meter the scene and get my exposure set up front. Then I can focus on nothing but composition and focussing when shooting. It helps.

[CheetaPita]

these are really cute! are you whitening the whites of the eyes though? in some of them it looks unnaturally white. easy to fix though :)

again, really cute images :)

[ssdang]

These are some pretty good pics. I wish my kids would stay still enough for me to snap a few good pics!