Cute Chubby Little Face! Feedback please!

As some might know...I am very new to this but I really do appreciate the advice and tips given to me through feedback on this forum.

I am totally obsessed with taking photos of my niece / god daughter because she is such a happy baby. Mia is 6 1/2 months old now and is an absolutley gorgeous little girl. She LOVES the camera, which makes it all the more fun....

Here are a couple of pics I took of her while babysitting her. I decided to let my sister go on a long awaited date with her husband one night....

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First of all...she is adorable! The first one seems to be pretty sharp and in focus, but is a bit underexposed and has some WB issues. The 2nd one is OOF. You definately have a great subject there to practice on

Some tips:

Shutter speed was too slow on both and f1.8 does not leave enough DOF for close up portraits like this. Stop down to f5.6 or so next time and keep shutter above 1/100. If you want to use f1.8 for background blur, step back a bit and leave more background to blur.

Watch your angle, that first "up the nostil" shot is not the best angle to shoot for many reasons. It also makes the baby look DOWN, which isn't doing anything for her eyes. Get more light into the photo.
The second shot has more light, but is way out of focus. If you find your autofocus grabbing the wrong point, put in it manual focus and work on getting the eyes sharp.
keep working at it, kids are difficult, but worth the effort...

Thanks for the tips everyone! I must say I do get a little too close when taking these pics with the 50mm... I am not used to taking pictures with this type of lens but I am having fun with it....

Sue: Someone else told me about manual focus....I am afraid to use it! I will try my best and maybe put something up that will do her eyes justice. Thanks!

Christyjo: Thanks! She is so cute sometimes I want to eat her up!

TKBSLC : What is DOF? Sorry I am very new to photography and I don't know all the terms yet....

fbalsamo100 wrote in post #10004337
What is DOF? Sorry I am very new to photography and I don't know all the terms yet....

Depth of field.

You might want to read through some of the stickies in the general photography forum -- there's some really great information there, presented in a pretty readable format. A good start: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=414088

DOF is the "depth of field" or "Depth of focus". It is how deep or narrow the plane of focus is. For example in the second picture you posted, the nose is in focus, but the DOF is so narrow the eyes are not! That is a side-effect of using f1.8 at a very close distance to your subject.

Some more reading material: http://www.diyphotogra​phy.net/depth_of_field