My first posting in this forum

[colormaniac]

Hello, here are some baby pictures that I took. Please feel free to comment. I'm new to DSLR, looking for room of improvement.

These pictures are taken either by Canon 85mm f/1.8 or Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 on an XSi. Usually I set the aperture as big as possible. If flash is used, it's Speedlite 430EX with a diffuser and pointing at the ceiling. By the way, except a few setting in converting from RAW to JPG, and sometimes removing red eyes, with CS4, I pretty much have not done any processing.

[colormaniac]

#3 and #4

[colormaniac]

#5 and #6

[colormaniac]

#7 and #8

[Guineh]

Sure is a cute little guy... :) I especially like #6.

Some advice:

If you have a low enough and white enough ceiling, try using the flash without the diffuser, I noticed the shadows in the first picture. What you'll lose without the diffuser is the catchlights in the eyes. You may want to vary the aperture a bit to increase the depth of field, so more of the baby's head is in focus (Exif shows a f1.8 aperture, and an 85mm focal length, that's a pretty thin DOF) , but then that depends on what style you're going for.

I'd say you're getting the hang of it!

[colormaniac]

Diffuser can give catchlights in the eyes... right... I haven't thought about that! Thank you, Guineh, for this and other advices! Yes, the ceiling there is pretty low and white enough. I'll try to flash without a diffuser.

[JoShAdKa4]

Hi, Welcome and, I'm new here myself so not much help on the technique. I really like 6 & 7, too cute.... thank you for sharing.

[shaftmaster]

Try shooting at ISO400 to allow a faster shutter speed. The shutter speed for hand-held shots should be faster than 1/(focal length*crop factor), so for 85mm lens you need probably 1/150 second or faster (1/200, etc.).

I'd also stop-down the aperture to increase the depth of field. At f/1.8 your DOF is pretty small.

[colormaniac]

Hi, Welcome and, I'm new here myself so not much help on the technique. I really like 6 & 7, too cute.... thank you for sharing.
Hi, Cindy, thanks for your reply! I hope soon there are some pictures from you. :)

[colormaniac]

Try shooting at ISO400 to allow a faster shutter speed. The shutter speed for hand-held shots should be faster than 1/(focal length*crop factor), so for 85mm lens you need probably 1/150 second or faster (1/200, etc.).

I'd also stop-down the aperture to increase the depth of field. At f/1.8 your DOF is pretty small.
I'm not sure about ISO 400. That seems too much. It could compromise the image quality, unless it's grayscale. By the way, I usually think that 1/40 or 1/50 is enough to get a clear image from a moving baby. Is 1/150 too much?

[Guineh]

I'm not sure about ISO 400. That seems too much. It could compromise the image quality, unless it's grayscale. By the way, I usually think that 1/40 or 1/50 is enough to get a clear image from a moving baby. Is 1/150 too much?

Really with these cameras ISO400 is reasonably safe. 1/40 is a rather slow shutter speed, especially for a fast moving kid. You can probably get away with ISO800, too.

[shaftmaster]

I'm not sure about ISO 400. That seems too much. It could compromise the image quality, unless it's grayscale. By the way, I usually think that 1/40 or 1/50 is enough to get a clear image from a moving baby. Is 1/150 too much?

I'll bet you will have a hard time seeing a difference between ISO100 and ISO400 unless you make huge prints or spend your time looking at 100% crops. Regardless, high ISO noise can be corrected in post-processing but blurry images due to subject movement or camera shake cannot be corrected. ISO400 is your friend. I'd much rather have a usable shot taken at ISO400 than an unusable shot taken at ISO100. Many pro camera bodies support ISO 3200, 6400, and higher for a good reason -- sometimes you need it to get a usable shot.

[colormaniac]

I'll bet you will have a hard time seeing a difference between ISO100 and ISO400 unless you make huge prints or spend your time looking at 100% crops. Regardless, high ISO noise can be corrected in post-processing but blurry images due to subject movement or camera shake cannot be corrected. ISO400 is your friend. I'd much rather have a usable shot taken at ISO400 than an unusable shot taken at ISO100. Many pro camera bodies support ISO 3200, 6400, and higher for a good reason -- sometimes you need it to get a usable shot.
I'll take your advice and try it. However, I do notice the difference between ISO100 and ISO400 on my 23'' HDTV monitor. Actually it looks like brightened up pictures with ISO100 by PhotoShop. There will be quite a lot of noise. Since I hope some pictures can be printed and framed, I hope to use lower ISO just in case that's one of my best shots.