Looking for Feedback - New Family Pic

I've been lurking these forums for a couple of years, but never really had anything to contribute. I bought my camera in early 2013, and never had the time nor the money to use it. I spent a lot of time reading and trying to understand the basics of photography, I shoot everything in manual, as I find the ability to manipulate the photo with aperture, shutter speed and ISO to be a thrill.

We went to one of the state parks north of Dallas last a week ago to try to snap a few pics, below is one of the pictures that *I thought* turned out pretty well, but I'm a novice at best and would love to hear some feedback from those willing to provide it.

I shot this with my T3 and the Canon 85mm f1.8 from a tri-pod. I set the camera and asked my mother-in-law to push the button. I've since purchases a couple of RF603C's so that I won't be needing the assistance.

Although there is some PP in the photo, I really don't want to rely on it, I want to learn how I can make the photo better.

Feedback is appreciated.

-Ed

Heya,

Things that stand out to me:

Exposure. Under-exposed. Lighting can help with this (off camera flash behind a softbox or umbrella for fill). But I would never trade exposure of the ambient environment for exposure of the faces of subjects. When doing natural light, I suggest you slightly over-expose and set exposure based on faces with attention to highlight blowout. You can always bring exposure down a notch in post, cleanly, but raising exposure in post, is way less clean and kills color, etc. This image will print very dark unfortunately.

Composition, the two adults are composed well for the frame size, but the newborn is partially cropped. Hands and feet are important to note. I would have stepped it back, get more of baby. Plenty of resolution to crop down if needed, but you can't bring back data that isn't there.

Clothing. If you're planning a shoot like this, pay attention to clothing. It's really hard to expose some colors (white & black) and matching things up so that exposure can be consistent instead of a challenge helps. I wouldn't have worn a black shirt.

Otherwise, lovely image and setting.

Very best,

Hi MalVeaux - Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback, it is well-noted.


Actually, now that you point out the black shirt, I definitely see your point. I guess that's what happens when I dress myself. I've not been on this end of portraiture before, this is a very valuable lesson for me.

I could have absolutely positioned the camera further away, I see the value that cropping the image would have added. I think we have some images that are better, but he was either angry or wiggling like crazy. He was roughly 10 days old when this picture was taken.

As for Flash, I purchased a YN560 IV, as well as the YN560-TX and some very affordable umbrellas. While I'm just learning about light and how to use it, I've enjoyed practicing with on and off camera flash. The family however, might be getting tired of me. I've found some recommendations for "Speedliter's Handbook" by Syl Arena in other posts, so I've purchased a copy and am working my way through it.

The problem I have with them is their faces are in shadow compared to the surroundings. The eyes are dark and that takes away from an otherwise nice shot. A bit of fill flash would help next time. For now I would selectively lighten the faces in post.

I can definitely see the issue with lighting. It's very apparent on my face where the source of light is coming from, perhaps some light fill from the lower left would have helped?

One issue that I was fighting was the brightness of the lake in the background. The sun was beating down on it, and trying to use the ambient by dropping my shutter would blow that portion of the background out. I need to order an hotshoe adapter from my light stand, I forgot to add it to my amazon order.

EddieLee wrote in post #17743049
I can definitely see the issue with lighting. It's very apparent on my face where the source of light is coming from, perhaps some light fill from the lower left would have helped?

One issue that I was fighting was the brightness of the lake in the background. The sun was beating down on it, and trying to use the ambient by dropping my shutter would blow that portion of the background out. I need to order an hotshoe adapter from my light stand, I forgot to add it to my amazon order.

Fill light should almost always be near the camera axis. Dont try to make your fill be directly opposite the key light. You want to fill the shadows the camera sees.

That's a great tip, thank you!

So as suggested, I decided to try to lighten portions of our faces, and adjusted the shadows, there was a lot of detail that was missing from the picture. My PP skills are null, I had not used Lightroom until last week.

Better or worse? What would you do differently?

You did much better on the PP for the second image. You can actually see details in the shirt and brightening the faces helped tremendously.
You have a lovely family and I can see this being a regular thing going forward.
You could have also considered using a reflector to capture some of the light to bounce back into your subject. As someone else mentioned, you really want to make sure you keep an eye out for the directionality of the light. You don't want to put a reflector low and bounce light up at you guys. Then you would create shadows in ways that would not make sense to the eye. Your use of flash will help for sure, but make sure to keep the supplemental light at or higher than the axis of the lens, or you will create some weirdness that will ruin your shots.

Could the T3 name in the Exif be any longer? jeez!

Nice shot! The second one does look better.

Thank you for the feedback, I think I'm happy with the way the second one turned out, I spent some time trying different things. It's very easy to make the photo look too edited. I really want to learn to take the shots correctly rather than making drastic changes to the photo in PP, but I can see the value in catching the moment and correcting things that you weren't able to capture when you had the opportunity. I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities that I miss though, I'm determined to learn my equipment in manual. It's much more satisfying to me to know that I did it, versus my allowing my camera, flash, etc. to make those decisions for me.

I'm really enjoying learning, and appreciate all of the tips. I love the science, and the trial and error portion of the hobby is free excluding time which is great, and we're able to do it as a family.

The T3 Exif is really long, I was surprised last night when I uploaded the first picture. I've never heard of an EOS Kiss X50.