First Family Photo Shoot

Here are some pics from my first family photo shoot. Advice?

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Cute pictures but they need some pop.

Lighting looks flat. White balance is off I believe - they need to be warmed up and the tone adjusted. Then I would add some light and some contrast.

And welcome to the forums....

Just read the rules and thought I'd add these were taken on a 60d with a canon 17-55 2.8; canon 135 2.0; and canon 85 1.8. Post processing in lightroom.

I know I have a lot to learn and was disappointed with the softness of some shots, but am not sure if it's due to focusing problems, lighting issues or something else. Like I said, this is my first formal family photo shoot and I'm obviously a beginner.

I've noticed a lot of my photos seem softer after I convert them from raw to jpg, but am also not sure why this is happening.

What aperture are you shooting at? Also,are you using single point or letting the camera pick a point? What shutter speed were you using? These all can have affect on sharpness throughout your photos.

All photos were shot with multi-segment metering and auto white balance (I don't have a 18% grey card/white balance card yet).

1) Canon 135 2.0 at 1/125 sec. and f6.3. http://www.flickr.com …3896/meta/in/ph​otostream/

2) Canon 85 1.8 at 1/125 sec. and f2.8. http://www.flickr.com …5611/meta/in/ph​otostream/

3) Canon 85 1.8 at 1/250 sec. and f2.8. http://www.flickr.com …6405/meta/in/ph​otostream/

4) Canon 17-55 at 1/60 sec. and f4.5. http://www.flickr.com …7499/meta/in/ph​otostream/

5) Canon 135 2.0 at 1/50 sec. and f5.6. http://www.flickr.com …8781/meta/in/ph​otostream/

What Titus said. Do some PP. I find NIK Viveza can be used to pick up photos like these in less than 30 seconds. Give it a try - download free 30 day trial (no, I dont work for them, I just think it is pfm). I generally like the composition of all your photos. #3 is priceless. The last one has two problems that I can see - the baby is OOF and the right side is cut off. I also see a little camera motion in #1. Bump up your ISO and your shutter speed. A good rule of thumb is too shoot at a shutter speed that is at least the 1/focal length. So when shooting with 1 135mm lens go to 1/160 or 1/200 to minimize the effects of lens motion.

These photos all seem dark and rather dull in appearance. It might be that your computer screen, by default, is too bright and so you processed these photos to look good on your screen which in fact is making them dark on other screens that have been calibrated for color, contrast, and brightness (like mine has been).

Thanks for the tips. I'll download NIK Viveza and put it to use.

I'm using a macbook pro with standard display settings. I don't think it needs calibrating, as the pictures look a little dark and flat on my screen too, but I'll look into it. The day of the shoot was very cold and overcast (fall in Iowa). I also added an antique effect to the images, which probably pulled the contract and saturation down even more.

Let me work on a revised PP tonight and I'll post the results tomorrow. Thanks again for all the help.

Here are the revised edits with Viveza 2 and some more lightroom adjustments.

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As far as the color/tone goes these are really much improved.

Great shots! I really like the emotion in them. The edits have a lot more pop but I think there's still a green cast to the skin tone in the first photo.

It's like night and day. Good job on the edits. The only issue with the last photo is the bluriness, but they were all no doubt moving.

Great edits.

When I saw the first set I had assumed you had desaturated them...maybe that's just Iowa lighting .

The second set is much much better. The last photo is unacceptable though

toss the last photo.