My daughter at a botanical garden...

[Kauaicrazed]

Found this neat location. My daughter really was not in the mood for posing as you might be able to tell in her expressions. LOL! Thought I'd share anyhow. C&C welcomed and appreciated.

#1
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i10/alohamommy/IMG_3607a.jpg

#2
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i10/alohamommy/IMG_3576.jpg

#3
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i10/alohamommy/IMG_3519.jpg

[anthonyi]

Cute little girl. If that's a bruise on her left shin I may have cloned it out. I love the pose in #1 although I wonder what it would have looked like taken from a slightly higher viewpoint.

I think they're very appealing images.

[Kauaicrazed]

Thanks Anthony. Do you mean if i was looking down on her or if there was more of a view above her head? CUz I cropped the image cuz of a major blowout. See below.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i10/alohamommy/IMG_3607.jpg

[anthonyi]

I meant if you were photographing her from very slightly higher up. Your original crop is the right one, IMHO. Even without blown highlights I think there would be way too much space above your daughter in the uncropped version.

I think that's a really sweet pic (and I mean sweet in the most positive way). The more I see it the more I like it.

[ka9546]

Great pics! Beautiful daughter! =)

[DaleMaren]

I love those. Beautiful daughter.

[Twisted Image]

wonderful shots...

[Kauaicrazed]

Thanks Anthony for the clarification! I appreciate your feedback.

Thanks ka9546, Dale and Twisted Image!

[christyjo2]

She is a cutie. My only main nitpick would be that the background is overexposed in pretty much every shot, which takes away from the garden scenery.

[Kauaicrazed]

She is a cutie. My only main nitpick would be that the background is overexposed in pretty much every shot, which takes away from the garden scenery.

Thanks for your post. How would I avoid it? I was in shaded area but as you can see the it was full sun behind her. I have this issue with a lot of my work and can't figure out how to get my subject correctly exposed w/o blowing out the background? KWIM? I'm all ears. :)

[christyjo2]

I would set my camera up to expose the background correctly. If your subject is a tad underexposed you can easily fix this because the details are still there. But if the background is all blown out there are no details left in it, therefore you really cannot completely fix it. Anytime im shooting in bright light, i use the sunny 16 rule, i get great results almost every time!

[Kauaicrazed]

I'll have to try that and see how it works for me. I never thought about exposing for the b/g cuz the subject was what I was concerned about. KWIM? I shot in raw but the b/g was overexposed/blown out from the start so there was nothing there to recover. Thanks for the advice. I'll have to check out the filters you mentioned. Someone else on here mentioned them to me regarding landscape photography in bright sun. Thanks again. :)

[christyjo2]

Have you ever tried using the sunny 16 rule?

[Kauaicrazed]

Have you ever tried using the sunny 16 rule?

You know I've read about it a loooong time ago but never tried it and can't even remember what it was about. I'll have to search for it and try it out. It works pretty well for you huh?

[BellaLouise]

Beautiful pieces and I love the location too =]

[Kerilynn]

Your daughter is adorable, love the outfit too:) Your pictures are great! Love #1 best.

[Lunajen]

Great shot, very cute!

[Kauaicrazed]

Thanks e1 for the nice words!

[Hinson]

You know I've read about it a loooong time ago but never tried it and can't even remember what it was about. I'll have to search for it and try it out. It works pretty well for you huh?

The sunny 16 rule goes back a long way and it's what us old-timers used to figure exposure.

Basically it works like this:

For a bright sunny day, set the set the Fstop at F/16 and the speed at the same as your ISO. So, if shooting at ISO 100, you would set the camera at 1/125sec@F/16, shooting at ISO 400 you would shoot at F/16@1/400sec and so forth.

For beach or snow scenes, stop down one -1.5 stops. For overcast sunlight open up 1 stop, and so forth.

I might add though that in a shot like these, you cannot get a good exposure on the subject and the background without a flash. Your exposure is good for the subject but to get the background exposed properly at ISO 200 and 2.8 you would have had to shoot at 1/6400 sec and the forground would have gone dark without a flash.