First pics with Xsi

I am a total newbie when it comes to DSLR cameras.. just touched and picked up my first one last night! and so this morning i decided to try to take a few pics of my kids who were NOT willing to help me out...

I am having trouble focusing on their faces.. Instead the focus will hit other things even though the little red light will have flashed right on their eye or whatever thing i -wanted- to focus on.. I have NO CLUE how to do the manual mode yet but most of these pics were taken in manual mode as i am toying around and trying to learn the camera and settings.. So far i only have the xsi with 18-55mm camera lens kit.. I am waiting to buy my prime 50mm lens, external flash and possibly a telefoto zoom lens when tax money comes...

Any critique or comments or help would be appreciated as these are my first shots and still have no clue what i am doing!!!!

(ps: My plan for my photographs is mainly just for personal use for my blog and family pics, etc I've kept a blog for 3yrs and really enjoy taking photographs even though i am not very good at it! Hopefully that will change with classes i plan to take and as i figure out this camera!)

Please bare wtih me .. i hope these aren't too big.. i'll only attach one then embed the rest

No flash
http://s91.photobucket​.com …view¤t=ja​cob1-2.jpg
http://s91.photobucket​.com …=view¤t=L​eah4-1.jpg
http://s91.photobucket​.com …ew¤t=Leah​window.jpg
with builtinflash
http://s91.photobucket​.com …=view¤t=l​eah2-2.jpg
http://s91.photobucket​.com …view¤t=Ja​cob2-2.jpg

I think the flash is washing their faces out to much??? and for some reason the pics look grainier then they did on my computer? hmmmm..

Thanks for looking and any help would be appreciated! Becky

I went right for the jugular.

I hate flash and use it only when absolutely necessary.

The lighting one gets from improperly used flash causes the following problems:

Flat lighting of the face as a result of direct frontal lighting from flash - thus no 3-dimensionality.

Severe, black shadows where they aren't wanted.

So, I went first to leah2-2 and found exactly what I was afraid of.

*************Studio Portrait Lighting**************​*
Tutorial on Studio Portrait Lighting Using Two Lights, with Emphasis on Rembrandt Lighting:
http://www.zaffora.com​/W9DMK/PortraitLightin​g.htm
or the downloadable PDF version at:
http://www.zaffora.com​/W9DMK/PortraitLightin​g.pdf

Also see this helpful reference:
http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/Rembrandt_light​ing

NO that's okay! that's why i posted here.. I need help!!! I have an external flash and another lens on its way in the mail after getting alot of great advice from these forums... I've been told soo many times about how flash is bad!! BUT my problem is how do i take indoor shots (when i don't have good lighting as the lights give off some orange hue not to mention I have a honey colored oak ceiling which further darkens our room!!!! )How the heck am i supposed to get good lighting in these conditions !! I'd love some advice as far as that goes.. I tried to open all the window curtains and blinds today and yet all my pictures were VERY dark unless they were right up on the window or i had the flash on... SOOOO what to do? any certain settings on the camera that would help or will my getting an external flash help? I am not looking to do professional photography by any means, i'd just like to have nice looking pics for my blog and an everyonce in a while nice one to put on the walls....

Oh, ignore my last comment Robert! Alot of people have such big signatures i thought the links you posted were part of your signature!! BUT now i see about the lighting.. hmmm..do they have to be actual lamps made for photography or would placing household lamps in those positions do a similar effect? however i can't chase my kids around with lamps when they are playing so I think I am in a pickle unless there's a better way? I did make a diffuser for my built in flash for now with vellum paper i had (As i have tons cause i scrapbook) and it actually really did help not wash out the face as much! Still not what i hope for, but much better as the light wasn't like hitting them and turning them into ghosts!

Dear becky_us,
One of the things that you learn after years of frustration is that you have to make do with what you've got. The bulk of the really artistic work done in photography was with extremely primitive equipment. You've heard of Edward Weston, but have you really looked hard at his work? Don't feel bad, most people haven't.

You may have to sacrifice image quality by using a higher ISO and accepting noise where you didn't want it. There are some excellent pieces of free software out there that do a good job in reducing the noise in an image.

The lamps that I used to write the portraiture article were ordinary incandescent bulbs that you find in the grocery store. Set up your color balance using a Custom White Balance. It won't be easy nor will it be perfect with mixed lighting.

Keep an eye out for where in the house you find the best ambient light. Generally speaking a southern exposure might well be too contrasty on clear days, but a northern exposure will be good. On really overcast days the southern exposure may be soft enough to work for you. You must learn to use those spots that have the light.

I'm not suggesting that you give up on candid photography or informal portraits. My primary basis for referring you to the portraiture article was to make you aware of the kind of lighting that you have to have in order to get good modeling of the facial contours. It doesn't matter how you get that lighting as much as it matters that you understand what a properly illuminated subject will look like.

Lighting is everything!

Okay, so I took these pics last night after reading the rembrandt lighting and the other article... I set my ISO a little higher and i cant exactly remember what other setting i changed, but these are with a regular house lamp to the right and a little higher to the kids and since they were in the corner of a room there's a beige wall that runs to the left of it with a window there, during the day that might make for good lighting, this was taken at night when there was no light, just a beige wall for the lamp to bounce off of, and of course no flash... I think these pics are too "warm" but i have PSE 7.0 and could probably get the yellow out of it..
Of course my son is all about making goofy faces at me, but he seems a little out of focus but then again for him to sit still for me very long is hard enough as it is! hmmm... gonna play around today during the day with different lighting options and with the window shades wide open.. but for late night time photos i guess this isn't that bad?

For whatever its worth, your EXIF data shows a 1/3 f-stop exposure bias in your shots. Let's not worry about that right now, but it is a point of curiousity.

Yes, these two shots look VERY warm - that's a Color Balance and/or a Custom White Balance issue, which again should be a separate concern for when you want to get around to it.

The basic issue here is that you have nice bright shots without flash, albeit at a darn slow shutter speed (1/6" and 1/13" shutter speeds). Most important is that you have created the shadow pattern that is the characteristic pattern of Rembrandt. I don't think anyone viewing these shots can miss the improvement in 3-dimensionality of their faces in comparison with the original shots on photbucket.

To me, that is an amazing accomplishment and it demonstrates quite vividly what a difference it makes to take control of your lighting.

The overly warm tones can be corrected in RAW processing and you can learn to do a Custom White Balance when you get around to it. But for today, you need to pour out a stiff one and drink to you accomplishment.

Thanks Robert!
Crazy enough I had not downloaded the software program (dpp) that came with the camera nor have i been shooting in RAW mode.. so i decided that today both of those would be my accomplishments so thats what i did... and then i decided to take a shot at my daughter in the bathtub.. now this room is extremely dark, only a light above the sink, dark walls/tub, no natural light at 8pm and even an open door would still block the light from hitting the bathtub.. so i had to use my builtin flash... I did throw a kleenex over it though (only thing in reach as i don't leave her alone in the tub) and i think it kept it from totally flushing her face out... It might be a little bright to the eye, but seems like i might have gotten the focus right... What do you think? definitely not natural light but a definite improvement from the squinty light in face look... I also read an article about the rule of thirds.. never heard of that before.. did i get that right here.. i thought maybe some more should have been taken off of her backside maybe, but otherwise it looked okay on the grid..

BUT WOW.. i shot in RAW today and i opened them up in the DPP program and i could not believe all the adjustments you could make, more dramatic then my pse ever is! I really liked using the RAW images and making changes that made the pictures look like a totally different picture.. amazing and very easy to do...

Onto your last post... I am not sure what you mean by 1/3 f stop exposure bias.. care to explain? is it something i did or the camera should not have done?

becky_us wrote in post #7384800
Thanks Robert!
Crazy enough I had not downloaded the software program (dpp) that came with the camera nor have i been shooting in RAW mode.. so i decided that today both of those would be my accomplishments so thats what i did... and then i decided to take a shot at my daughter in the bathtub.. now this room is extremely dark, only a light above the sink, dark walls/tub, no natural light at 8pm and even an open door would still block the light from hitting the bathtub.. so i had to use my builtin flash... I did throw a kleenex over it though (only thing in reach as i don't leave her alone in the tub) and i think it kept it from totally flushing her face out... It might be a little bright to the eye, but seems like i might have gotten the focus right... What do you think? definitely not natural light but a definite improvement from the squinty light in face look... I also read an article about the rule of thirds.. never heard of that before.. did i get that right here.. i thought maybe some more should have been taken off of her backside maybe, but otherwise it looked okay on the grid..

BUT WOW.. i shot in RAW today and i opened them up in the DPP program and i could not believe all the adjustments you could make, more dramatic then my pse ever is! I really liked using the RAW images and making changes that made the pictures look like a totally different picture.. amazing and very easy to do...

Onto your last post... I am not sure what you mean by 1/3 f stop exposure bias.. care to explain? is it something i did or the camera should not have done?

In your instruction booklet you will find Exposure Compensation described on p78. What may have happened is that you may have cranked the dial a notch or two one way or other without realizing it. Likewise, it may be reset to zero by now. The exposure compensation feature, in essence, is a means of biasing the exposure over or under what the camera's metering system thinks it should be. In other words, the camera's metering system thinks you should take this scene with f/5.6 and 1/50". But you think that would be too much, so you put in a compensation value of -1.0 f-stop, which could be implemented by a change to f/8 or a change to 1/100". In other words, you are forcing the camera to give 1 f-stop less exposure than it thinks would be right, because you know better for some reason.

When you want to soften the lighting from flash, and if you have the flexibility with an external flash unit, bouncing the light off the ceiling is a far better method.

In regard to composition and the rule of thirds, I would say that you've got it right in this example.

In regard to your concern about the exposure in this shot, I would say that you've got it as right as it can be for the case of the built-in flash since there is not much you can do to bounce it. However, there are some clever people out there who will jury rig some way of doing it. In any case, the deep black shadow under the chin is going to let everyone know that it was a flash shot, so you just have to live with that.

By the way the color balance looks excellent on this shot.

In regards to software, I have used Adobe's CS, CS2, CS3 and CS4 and am now evaluating PSE-7.

So far, I hate PSE-7, and every time I use Zoom Browser EX I am impressed with how much I can do with less fuss than with PSE-7. The only things wrong with CS are the price and the complexity.

You know what Robert! I think i might have adjusted the flash exposure at one point... i think cause it made my indoor picture brighter? i'll make sure its back to zero now, thank you for explaining that to me!...

I actually don't mind the darkness underneath leah's chin, but i found i was getting that in alot of my pictures, so that's from using the flash? I was wondering, because every picture i took of her while she was in the tub seemed to have that and i thought maybe it was from the lip of the tub being there or something, but yeah that bathroom is awful and i was surprised i got such a good picture from there! .. i'm not much for girl baby nudeness so the darkness under there kind of keeps the attention away from her nudeness i think or at least it makes it not the focus of the picture.. Thank you for all your help, I really feel you've helped me immensely the last few days and i can't wait to work more with the camera and hopefully have warm enough weather to get outside and take some pictures!

becky_us wrote in post #7394914
You know what Robert! I think i might have adjusted the flash exposure at one point... i think cause it made my indoor picture brighter? i'll make sure its back to zero now, thank you for explaining that to me!...

I actually don't mind the darkness underneath leah's chin, but i found i was getting that in alot of my pictures, so that's from using the flash? I was wondering, because every picture i took of her while she was in the tub seemed to have that and i thought maybe it was from the lip of the tub being there or something, but yeah that bathroom is awful and i was surprised i got such a good picture from there! .. i'm not much for girl baby nudeness so the darkness under there kind of keeps the attention away from her nudeness i think or at least it makes it not the focus of the picture.. Thank you for all your help, I really feel you've helped me immensely the last few days and i can't wait to work more with the camera and hopefully have warm enough weather to get outside and take some pictures!

Amen to that!