In the forest with my son. CC please.

This was my first attempt at taking some really nice posed photo's of my son in the forest near our house. I was wanting to share what I learned and hopefully get some CC to help me out. If what I learned is wrong, lol, please correct me too.

What I used: T2i, 50mm 1.8, 580EXII

1. I much preferred the shots I took with fill flash. Without it I got too many shadows and didn't find the colours looked as good.
2. I had the flash set to ettl and used the built in diffuser and bounce card, but I still found it was to harsh on his face. Next time I will drop the flash compensation a bit and I am planning on getting a better diffuser to play with.
3. Don't try to pose him, lol. All the shots I tried to get with him sitting and posed didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. He always had a face that just seemed confused. I found I got much better shots by putting him in the area I was hoping to get the shot and just let him play
4. Keep the aperture around 2.2 or higher. At 1.8 I found it hard to focus quick enough and lost a few shots.
5. Bring a rake. I would have liked to have gotten better shots with the leaves but they were just too hard to collect.
6. Bring someone with you. If I didn't have my wife with me I wouldn't have been able to get as many shots.
7. Watch the background. I was so focused on him and getting the best shot of him a few shots had distracting backgrounds. There were some where you could see my bag in the distance to someone walking on the path.

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I am by no means an expert and probably have no right to comment but..... ill just toss in my two cents anyway because this is the internet!

In the first pic, the colors look off. Even the background looks "too green" or something... It might not be so bad if the flash wasnt so bad on your boy. Did you shoot in raw? You might be able to fix it either way. Im sure i am showing my inexperience here.

Pretty much the same in the second pic. The flash washes out your (very very cute) son and makes him look blue. Again, Im not positive how but Im pretty sure that can be fixed in post processing. Download a trial of photoshop elements and watch some instructional vidoes on youtube about fixing skin tones. Hopefully someone else can chime in and tell you exactly how to do it!

Also, if you go to your profile and turn on image editing allowed, others will feel ok about "fixing" your photos and reposting them. Thanks for reading my blabber!

Shane

PS I did a quick edit and think it looks better, is it ok to post?

The white balance is definitely off. I played around with the second shot (I liked that shot best) to achieve a slightly warmer than "correct" skin tone (this also made the whole scene look better), applied some of my standard "people shots" workflow to it and got a pretty good photo out of the second shot, considering the direct harsh flash lighting.

A decent diffuser (even just a small shoot thru umbrella with a speedlite and getting the flash off camera to one side and slightly higher than camera level by two or three feet would improve your results for this type of shot. Even so, proper post processing could improve the shots you've already taken.

I should have mention I did shot in RAW and I have Aperture 3 (got a free copy from photog friend for all the work I have done with his computer). I am completely new to editing so all I really did to these was a bit of cropping and brought down the highlights a bit on his face.

I have enabled modification, so feel free to post the edits you may have done. And if possible a brief description of what you did so I can try to recreate it. If I have a good edit it may help me figure out the tools since I will know what to aim for.

Ya, I was disappointed in the harshness of the flash and I will get a better diffuser. I know off camera is ideal but right now I just don't have the ability to do it. But I do have my eye on a cheap RF602 in the future.

PS. thanks a again for the tips. I have learned a lot for the CC I have gotten on this forum.

I know this is easy to say, but, try to get the best you can in camera first. You can set a custom white balance to get that right. You can shoot a simple piece of white paper then set your WB from that. You don't even need your subject in the frame. Try some test shots after you do that. Instructions for setting a custom WB are in your camera manual. I am not a total newbie but not a pro either. First time I did this was an eye opener. Try without the flash too. From what I have learned it is way easier to get good images the first time than try to fix it later.

W900 wrote in post #11108164
I know this is easy to say, but, try to get the best you can in camera first. You can set a custom white balance to get that right. You can shoot a simple piece of white paper then set your WB from that. You don't even need your subject in the frame. Try some test shots after you do that. Instructions for setting a custom WB are in your camera manual. I am not a total newbie but not a pro either. First time I did this was an eye opener. Try without the flash too. From what I have learned it is way easier to get good images the first time than try to fix it later.

Completely agree, but I am still at the point where I am learning how to get exposure right with aperture, shutter and ISO, how to point/bounce my flash, and the best way to focus. which is why right now I still stick to auto WB, hope for the best, and try to correct it if I have to.

Ok. Here is my go at it. I adjusted the levels on the entire picture. Then I sharpened only his eyes using the cirlce selector (I too am new to editing and forget what it is called) and then went and adjusted the WB on just his face and hair since I thought the rest looked good at that point. Hope you like it!

Shane

I came back and thought his face still looked a little bright so I went back to my work and the photo doesnt seem to match whta Im looking at in PE9. I gave it another whirl with a bit more levels adjustment on his face skin.

EggWhiteS,JakAhearts has done some good work on your photo,IMO. Another thing you can try is to set your camera to AV (aperature value). It will basically take care af the f/stop for you and you meter for shutter speed. I still think you should read up on how to set custom white balance though,it's REALLY pretty simple, and the results will surprise you. Test shots and just playing around with the camera is free and the learning experience can be very satisfying. The people that have responded to your questions are all jr members of this forum (including myself) and I think that is just plain cool. I have been watching this forum for awhile now and seems most are willing to help the new guys. Keep making memories! They just get better from here!

Thank you JakAHearts for the edits. I do like the warmness of them. I played around with my original a bit and was able to get the white balance basically like what you have. I have been also reading some Aperture 3 guide to get some ideas on what to do with my images, but I really like what you did with the first one.

W900, thanks for the tips and I will be trying that out on my next attempt. Most of the shots that day were done in AV, and a few in manual. Usually when I go out I try to only play with a few settings at a time so I don't get too confused with how they all affect each other. For this shoot I really wanted to see how the aperture would effect the shots. Up to now I haven't had much time to play with my 50mm outdoors. And I normally don't us it too open indoors since my house is not too big and on a crop I have a hard time getting far enough to get the shot I want.

Thank you. The best part is it only took about 5 minutes! Probably less... Im so glad I live in the digital age as opposed to the film days when making small changes took a lot longer.

Thank you all for the help and while I was happy with the results from the pictures they do now look even better with these simple edits.

I suggest taking a few cropped in. In the first, there is a lot of negative space at the top of the photo. By cropping in, you will get more of your son and not trees. Secondly, I suggest getting down lower to the ground. Children photos look better when the photographer is at eye level with the child. It reduces the adult looking down at a child viewpoint.

Thanks for those points. The second one is actually cropped in, and I included the first uncropped to show an original.

I always try to get low when I take photo's of him, but thanks for pointing that out. When you are so focused on everything sometimes you forget the basics.

Handsome boy! Your self cc is great, which leads me to think that you'll make great strides as you continue to practice!

Tim