HELP!! Pregnant cousin asking for her picture to be taken

[christianemmel]

Hello everyone;

I am just a hobby photographer but my family seems to think I do much better work than I think i do. My cousin is pregnant and asking me to take her picture as her pregnancy is a little more advanced, any ideas on where I can some visual ideas? websites? or perhaps someone here can help. Any and all help is appreciated, I am attaching a couple of pictures I have taken for you to see my work. My equipment include an XTi, canon nifty fifty, canon 70-200mm f/4L, tamron 75-300mm f/4422688

422689

[sf1]

Just make sure she is comfortable and showing the belly....everything else will just come natural. I have a few fun pics on my website.

[hawk911]

just look up belly shots or belly pics on google. You'll find a ton. I think another website is bellyshots.com

[christianemmel]

thank you both, I will begin my search for belly pix, darn so simple and I could not figure this out for the life of me... big THANK YOU

[hawk911]

let me suggest you look for a smaller lens, something that's in the 24-70 range. You have an overlap on the 75-200 range. The 24-70 can be very handy in close quarters.

[Andrushka]

you can search maternity or pregnant on Flickr and get a ton of results too...

[christianemmel]

great ideas and thnx for the lens advise, how about using the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens? any thoughts? thanks again for the contributions.

[hawk911]

That can work well for you. Depending on light, you may find manual focus is better than AF.

[christianemmel]

Thnx hawk911, I took these two pictures at a family gathering with the Canon 50mm let me know what you think, if is not much to ask. And again, thnx to everyone for the comments, they really help allot, I have found tons of pix on the net.

[christianemmel]

one more with the Canon 50mm

[hawk911]

The second is a nice shot, the first and third could really use some fill flash. These images to me are not really a good fit for dark and shadowy.

[christianemmel]

all three were taken with no flash, XTi with canon 50mm, 1) f/1.8 1/100sec ISO-1600 2)f/1.8 1/80sec ISO-1600 3)2)f/1.8 1/60sec ISO-1600, any ideas on fixing without using a flash?

[hawk911]

no- you really need to use flash unless you plan the shots with VERY good lighting. For snaps in normal incandescent lights, the flash helps a ton; even your on camera would have helped.