Focus on the Eyes

The title explains it all! Anytime you are taking a photo, especially up close, focus on the subject's eyes. In this photo my daughter was standing right beneath me so I bent over, akwardly, and snapped this picture of her looking up at me! I had my 35mm f1.8 lens on while I was outside taking pictures of us and our neighbors playing in the snow. I made sure my shutter speed was fast enough. For this photo the shutter speed was super fast, 500 at an f4.5 ISO 1600.

I took this one of my neighbor's little boy who has the most handsome features of any little boy I know! I love the red hair and blue eyes! Again the shutter speed was fast because these little boogers move!! 640 at an f4.5 with ISO 1600.

Enjoy taking fun pictures of your kids, pets or family members!

Noiseware Community Edition

Here's something fun! If you shoot your pictures in RAW then convert to JPEG through photoshop you can use this FREE software called Noiseware to smooth out your pictures! You can change the perameters so that you don't go overboard on the masking! Here's a before (bottom) and after (top)...

Crispy, Crispy!

So, now that I've been practicing with shutter speeds and apertures I feel like these photo's came out pretty good!

Here's what I did...

I took these pictures around 4:00pm. The sun comes in the back of my house as it sets so, I had lots of natural light! I made sure my shutter speed was between 150 and 200 because she was wiggling and my aperture was wide open at f1.8. When I opened these photo's in Lightroom I first adjust the white balance with the dropper then increase the exposure. I increase all of the sliders and turn up the masking. (If you want more details, just ask!) Basically, once I've decided it looks nice, I'm done!

Numbers, Numbers, what do you mean?

Answer from my neighbor!

"The numbers between 100 and 150 (in your view finder or info screen) were probably your shutter speed. Put a 1/### and it tells you how long your shutter is open for. So, if it said 100 it was open 1/100th of a second. The shorter it's open the better it can stop the action. If it's open too long it will be fuzzy due to camera shake or the subject moving.

A good rule of thumb is that you can hold 1/mm of the lens. But since your camera has a 1.5x smaller sensor you need to multiply it by 1.5. So, your 35mm lens can probably be hand held at 1/50th of a second assuming your subject is holding still. 1/100+ is a good number for an infant. 1/200 is good for a moving toddler, maybe even more."

I will experiement soon and post my results!!

Thanks for your help neighbor!!!

Sweet baby Maggie!

Here are a few pictures from Maggie's photo session today! What a sweet baby. You'd never know she was so tiny! Her little features are perfect and she's just a doll. Also, thank you to my lovely assistant Melanie! You're work inspires me and your help is always appreciated!

The low down...

Here's what I did (remember, I had the assistance of a professional). First, I/We selected a position in the room with the most natural light. Turning off lamps (warm light) nearby. I used my 35mm fixed lens with my camera set on "A" mode (aperture priority). The ISO was set on 1600 (now thinking back it could have been on 800). So when I took my pictures the info on the inside (shooting view) was between 100 and 150. (When I find out what that number means I will let you know!) I played around with what I focused on, her feet, her hands, mostly her eyes, even though they were closed.

First things, first...

I am, by no means, even close to a professional! I am a mom who just wants to take a good picture of my child. I have to give credit where it's due! Thanks to my wonderful friends, Melanie and Dan (one of which is a professional photographer) for giving me tips, pointers and hints! I take what I have learned from them, as well as from reading other blogs and published books to learn how to get the most out of the equipment I have. So, I'll be posting hints from time to time about things I've learned so that, hopefully, I can pass on some helpful hints to other moms, and dad's too, who can take fabulous photographs of their little angels!