smittymike19
18th of April 2005 (Mon), 13:09
Man this photography stuff is hard, especially shooting people. Yesterday I was taking pictures at my sister in laws baby’s christening, and man was it tough. Here are the pics I wanted to get:
Dressing the baby
These were shot in a 8 x 10 room with 5 adults and 2 kids and a queen sized bed, with a 50mm lens. The sunlight coming thru the window was strong and angling the camera was tough but at least I had enough light. I used f 1.8 and then f 2.5 as the 1.8 was a little too shallow
Shots at the house after the baby was dressed
First thing, I know that you need to be cautious with sunlight. Since I had to take these at about 1pm I had to deal with direct overhead sunlight. So what did I do? I searched the area for a shaded area. Bad thing was there was only one small shaded area at the house. About 5ft x5xft in size. So I had to get them in the spot and angle them so that the house that was directly to the left of them and the drive way directly to the right, did not show in the pic. No way to avoid breaking the rule of thirds, but the shots actually came out decent with them dead center. I was trying to blur the background and had to figure out what fstop would allow me to blur the house behind them, while still giving me a wide enough dof to get the subjects in focus. I went with 2.5 and it seems to have worked. The other thing that is harder is that on top of trying to keep all of this in mind, you have to worry about the composition of the people, that is, are they posed nicely? Are they all looking at the camera? Do they looked relaxed? Are they smiling? Whew all this while trying to rush out the door to get to the church, and don’t forget the people trying to peek to see what is going on, and pop into the background.
shots at the church
the church was very poorly lit so I was only able to get a decent speed using f1.8 and iso 1600, otherwise I was looking at 1/20 sec. And since we were far away that wouldn’t do. So the shots pretty much stunk inside. Couple that with the fact that my 2 year old started screaming and I had to walk outside, lets just say I hope someone else got some decent shots.
shots after church with more relatives
again had to deal with lighting issues as the sun was still at full power. I found yet another small area (8 x8 ft ) on the lawn of the church. In order to actually take the picture with a decent background I had to climb in between some bushes while someone held tree branches out of the cameras view. Also I was trying to take some candids, yet with the 50mm, you have to get too close to remain unseen, and as soon as someone sees the camera pointed at them, they have 2 reactions. 1. they hide. 2 they turn towards the camera and pose. Managed to get a few good ones but need to get a decent zoom to get more. The other thing here was trying to get EVERYONE in at least 1 picture. Easier said than done, as everyone is all over the place. I m sure I will hear from people “how come you didn’t get any of me?”. I already heard it just after the day was over, as I had missed some important people (namely my wife, lol). My MIL is next to yell at me.J
shots at the restaurant.
Again the lighting changed, and the camera was having a really hard time focusing. It was doing a lot of hunting, and the white balance was off. Luckily I shot in raw so I am hoping to save these pics.
Lessons learned:
Need an external flash as indoor shots (church, restaurant) are impossible without a decent flash. Since I refuse to use my onboard flash, this will be purchased next.
a good zoom is essential for good candids.
shooting people is WAY harder than shooting still scenes.
you have to make do with what you have (crawl in bushes,etc..) in order to get decent shots sometimes.
5 I need more experience. Lots more.
Dressing the baby
These were shot in a 8 x 10 room with 5 adults and 2 kids and a queen sized bed, with a 50mm lens. The sunlight coming thru the window was strong and angling the camera was tough but at least I had enough light. I used f 1.8 and then f 2.5 as the 1.8 was a little too shallow
Shots at the house after the baby was dressed
First thing, I know that you need to be cautious with sunlight. Since I had to take these at about 1pm I had to deal with direct overhead sunlight. So what did I do? I searched the area for a shaded area. Bad thing was there was only one small shaded area at the house. About 5ft x5xft in size. So I had to get them in the spot and angle them so that the house that was directly to the left of them and the drive way directly to the right, did not show in the pic. No way to avoid breaking the rule of thirds, but the shots actually came out decent with them dead center. I was trying to blur the background and had to figure out what fstop would allow me to blur the house behind them, while still giving me a wide enough dof to get the subjects in focus. I went with 2.5 and it seems to have worked. The other thing that is harder is that on top of trying to keep all of this in mind, you have to worry about the composition of the people, that is, are they posed nicely? Are they all looking at the camera? Do they looked relaxed? Are they smiling? Whew all this while trying to rush out the door to get to the church, and don’t forget the people trying to peek to see what is going on, and pop into the background.
shots at the church
the church was very poorly lit so I was only able to get a decent speed using f1.8 and iso 1600, otherwise I was looking at 1/20 sec. And since we were far away that wouldn’t do. So the shots pretty much stunk inside. Couple that with the fact that my 2 year old started screaming and I had to walk outside, lets just say I hope someone else got some decent shots.
shots after church with more relatives
again had to deal with lighting issues as the sun was still at full power. I found yet another small area (8 x8 ft ) on the lawn of the church. In order to actually take the picture with a decent background I had to climb in between some bushes while someone held tree branches out of the cameras view. Also I was trying to take some candids, yet with the 50mm, you have to get too close to remain unseen, and as soon as someone sees the camera pointed at them, they have 2 reactions. 1. they hide. 2 they turn towards the camera and pose. Managed to get a few good ones but need to get a decent zoom to get more. The other thing here was trying to get EVERYONE in at least 1 picture. Easier said than done, as everyone is all over the place. I m sure I will hear from people “how come you didn’t get any of me?”. I already heard it just after the day was over, as I had missed some important people (namely my wife, lol). My MIL is next to yell at me.J
shots at the restaurant.
Again the lighting changed, and the camera was having a really hard time focusing. It was doing a lot of hunting, and the white balance was off. Luckily I shot in raw so I am hoping to save these pics.
Lessons learned:
Need an external flash as indoor shots (church, restaurant) are impossible without a decent flash. Since I refuse to use my onboard flash, this will be purchased next.
a good zoom is essential for good candids.
shooting people is WAY harder than shooting still scenes.
you have to make do with what you have (crawl in bushes,etc..) in order to get decent shots sometimes.
5 I need more experience. Lots more.