Newborn pictures

One of the main reasons I wanted a nice camera was to take great pictures of my kids. I love professional pictures, but, obviously, I would rather do it myself. Here is my first attempt at a "real" photoshoot - this one was for my newborn baby, at 9 days old.

It was FUN!! I loved taking pictures of such a still subject. I didn't have to worry getting sharp shots as much because he wasn't wiggling everywhere.

 Something that I can't stand about a lot of newborn pictures I've seen is that people try too hard. They do newborn shots, but the baby is hidden in mounds of pink fluff, sitting in a vintage stroller, with a vintage sign above the stroller, with a giant pink flower on their head, and all you can see is their little eyes peeking out from all the fluff. Oh, and don't forget the rose petals scattered around on the ground.

Okay, so maybe it's not *THAT* bad. But I've seen some pictures where I really start to wonder what the focus is in the pictures. Is it a baby, or is it cute props?

Personally, I actually LOVE props. I think they can add a lot to a photograph. But not in excess. I want to focus on the tiny fingers and toes, the little wrinkly forehead...and the props are just there for fun composition, maybe a color pop, or perhaps some sentimental value (like, for example, my husband's jacket and football). I wouldn't do a shot like this one unless it had sentimental value, because I think for just the sake of having props, it would be too much.

I had a great time taking these pictures. I would probably change a few things if I could go back, but overall, I love them. I think they turned out nice!

More moving water.

 f/36 3.2 sec. exposure, ISO-100, 55 mm
We finally made a little trip to Provo and I was able to go to Bridal Veil Falls to get a picture. The water looks great, I think the color is kind of terrible, it looks a bit overexposed and very blue to me. Also, it's not very sharp. I don't know how to make it any sharper, because I had the camera on a tripod and used the timer so I wouldn't be touching it at all. I wonder if it has to do with the exposure time, and what I can do to help that? Besides make it less, of course, because that would defeat my purpose of getting the moving water effect that I want...

Indoor studio

I've always wanted to be able to take great pictures inside, mainly so I have some really good "studio" type pictures of my daughter. I took a few pictures for the fun of it earlier and I learned a couple of things. One thing I learned is that for now I won't or don't have to worry about any special lighting. I don't know about a sunny day yet, but on a cloudy day, the huge window in our living room provides great lighting. Backdrops are another story, and I'll probably work on that next.

Another thing I learned was I have to be veeery careful to focus just right. Zooming in on her eyes in this picture, I get this:

Yuck!! I can tell it's not quite focused anyway, before it's cropped or anything. Unfortunately, I can't tell from the little screen on the camera unless I zoom in. I need to be really careful about that, because it's hard to focus on wiggly, squirmy toddlers. I guess it's just something that I'll have to practice. Now compare it to this one that I took awhile before:

Yeah, that's much better. It does help that she was sitting more still in this one, but I can't let that affect the quality of my photos too much. I need to remember to re-focus more often, and not just set it and go crazy. I would like to make it take the picture a bit faster, but I don't want to mess with the ISO too much if I can help it, and keep it on the lower end, so I think this is going to come down to practice.

Moving water.

I have studied camera settings before. Before I had a camera that could do anything, I learned all about ISO and aperture and shutter speed, and what they did. I've forgotten every bit of it. Makes sense, because I learn best when I do hands-on things, and I couldn't really do anything hands-on without a camera that was capable.

Anyway, I want to learn. The auto settings - I HATE THEM. Not because they take bad pictures. On the contrary, they're fine pictures. But I can't do anything if I want the skin tone to be a bit lighter, if the shadows are just a bit too dark, if my daughter's white sweater is looking "glowy" I can't do a whole lot. I just have to take what I get. I can change the exposure on one auto mode, but it really doesn't work quite how I want it. Of course that was one of the main reasons I wanted a camera like this in the first place, so I decided that even though it's a bit overwhelming, it's time to start learning the settings forward and backward, till it's natural to me. I wish I had more time to do it, but being a mom and wife, it's honestly hard to do. (As I type, I hear a very loud crash coming from my daughter's room...) But my first goal: get one of those cool pictures of water, where the water is completely soft and smooth looking. It's not something that you see in real life, because...well, that's not how our eyes perceive motion. I've always thought it looked cool in certain pictures. I must warn you, the pictures are NOT pretty. My goal was to find moving water, and it WAS moving water, so it worked for me. I'll work on the "pretty" part later.

This one is f-18, 1 second exposure, ISO-100, at 50mm. In case you cared. So this is my long exposure, but not long enough. It sort of looks more like someone took a smudge brush in Photoshop to it, not the pretty, smooth water look that I was going for.

This one is just on auto - which ended up being f/2.8, 1/60 sec exposure, ISO-100.

Alright, so I did not get my desired effect. Not even close. The exposure time was still too fast, which I knew it was, and I knew I wasn't getting it how I wanted it, but...I didn't know how to make it longer than it was. I later realized I can go to a 30 second exposure. Uhh, yeah. About that. I'll try again soon...although, I don't know if you can do a 30 second exposure in the middle of the day. I'm not sure if my camera would be capable of that, or if I would need a special lens or filter or something. But I think a couple of seconds would suffice, especially if it was faster moving water, which I wanted in the first place. Either way, I know I can get the results I want with what I have, I just need to try again.