first go at outdoor portraits

Your thoughts on these if you please

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they all need fill flash

as some of them seem a bit soft/ oof.. with the flash you could have dropped the aperture down slightly

thanks - though my concern with fill flash are the possible reflections off the glasses.

The most pleasing one to me is the Family shot, which is great. I can tell the little girl on the right moved a bit because shes OOF but hey...that didnt ruin the picture, and I like it. I would try to sharpen up the eyes more. The last picture on my screen has a blueish tint to it and too much noise. Easily fixed in Photoshop, but somehow I would like more space on the left of the photo since she's looking in that direction.

maybe a smaller aperture to get more of them in focus. in the first, he's very sharp but she's a bit oof. the dad in the family shot appears most focused and the focus softens as it goes out.

i LOVE the composition and lighting, maybe bring up the exposure in the first pic a smidge.

well done.

Lighting is everything. I think the next time you get ready to take a portrait outdoors spend a half hour unrushed moving your subjects around in the light to get an idea of how light plays a significant role. I think you will find that controlled direct lighting is superior to flat lighting. Sometimes you don't get a choice and that's when flash becomes useful.

#1 - Needs more depth of field. You got good focus on him, but she's out. You don't say what lens you used, but I get the feeling it was a wide aperture lens wide open. A photographer needs to be judicious in selecting the aperture.

#2 - backlit by sunlight. Not a great mix. Highlights are blown out in order to get good exposure on their faces. Again, a problem with shallow depth of field. The child on the right is out of focus.

#3 - too blue, extremely noisy (e.g. black shirt and background). It looks like you got the exposure wrong on this one and tried to fix it in post-processing. Eyes don't have the focus. Kill it.