I like this pose

My nephew Bryson came over to play...little did he know he'd have to pose for me, haha!



 f/1.8
1/500
iso100

So, how's the composition in this photo?  Although his eyes are not in the dead center of the photo horizontally, the are vertically, I think, or at least darn close.  Should I have done something different?  Had them higher or lower?

Christmas tree bokeh

Here's my attempt at the Christmas light bokeh...As always, I know the comps are not great but I was just seeing if I could get the big glowing Christmas lights.  Maybe next Christmas I'll be able to get some really good, creative shots. :-)

 f/1.4
1/100
iso1600

f/1.4
1/60
iso1600

Curly Hair Kylie

Last night I begged Alyssa to let me curl her hair for her piano recital, but she just did not want it.  But Kylie wanted her hair curled and loved it so much she wanted it done today too.  She said, "Can we curl my hair everyday?"  Haha, so girly.  Anyway, there is nothing really special about these pics, I just thought it was a good excuse for a photoshoot.  :-) She was SO wiggly and would not hold still and it was so hard to keep the focus on her eyes.  p.s. I think all of these photos might be overexposed and I think she has some, what are they called, "hotspots"?? on her face?  (where it's really white and bright)

f/2.5
1/80
iso200
cloudy wb setting

She gave me a lot of closed eye shots, ugh I HATE blogger, it does NOT do what I tell it to do.  This pic would not go centered and it's bugging me.

 

same settings as above 

 f/2.5
1/125
iso200

I know she is off centered.  These are all SOOC until I say otherwise, so it just is what it is for now.  Like I said, she was so wiggly!  I felt like I had to capture it so quickly before she moved, so I didn't have time to make everything perfect, ya know?

Oops!  These were the first few pics I took.  My camera was still on the Tungsten setting from playing around last night in my house.  Too bad cause they're actually cute pics!  I know in RAW I could change this easily.  I could probably change it even though it's jpeg too right?  I just don't really know how.



wb comparison

Here is the picture of Trevor, just adjusted the white balance, nothing else.  Do you think he still looks washed out?  Actually, I checked levels in PS and he is a little OVERexposed.  The RED channel is blown on his face, which might also be why he's looking a little pixely.  Hmmmm, I'll look at the others to see if that is why they look pixely.

Close-ups

OH dear, this was interesting.  I think I did something wrong as far as the composition.  I tried to do close-ups like you told me to Rachelle, but I'm not sure this is what you had in mind.  haha.  Are they too close?  I tried to do that top right or left focal point thing.  HOWEVER I am pleased, I think with the sharpness of at least the eyes which is what I was going for.  Should her hair be more in focus?  Does it matter?

f/3.2

1/400

iso200

50mm

 Okay I like these next 2 of Trevor because I like that his eyes are in focus but his face looks really smooth and creamy.  I'm hoping they're not overexposed. On 2nd thought maybe he looks washed out?  What do you think...I also like how in the first one his shirt is out of focus.

 f/2.8

1/400

iso200

50mm

I'm not really sure why I posted this one...his cheeks look grainy...??  Maybe too sharp?  How'd I do that?Same info as above.

Alyssa wouldn't take her baby's head out of the picture...sigh.  And for the life of me I couldn't get them to do something cute like a smile, heaven forbid. :-)  She also looks...grainy, too sharp, something weird.  Why?  Also, why is the middle of her forehead out of focus, but the sides of her forehead on her hairline are in focus?

f/2.5

1/500

iso200 

50mm

f/2.5

1/500

iso200

50mm 

These were inside and she was laying on the floor.  Not the best pics but again, her eyes are in focus and look sharp to me which is what I wanted to see. :-)

f/1.8

1/160

iso800

50mm

So, what do you think?  Any more composition tips?  Should I not even worry about that right now? 

1st photoshoot with my new lens!

Alright, well, I think have a few things to learn about this lens.  Like, how do I get all 3 kids in focus?  I know that this isn't a very good shot as far as the girls aren't even looking at the camera, but I was just trying to get the exposure and focus bla bla right.  And the only one looking at the camera, is out of focus!

f/2.2

1/320 

iso200

(all photos except last are the same)

They're still lacking that crisp clear sharp look...I don't get how you get that. 

Again, here I focused on one of Alyssa's eyes so of course Kylie is out of focus...what should I focus on when shooting multiple subjects?

f/2.2

1/400

iso200

Before Church photoshoot

I'm going to drive my kids crazy.  I came down the stairs after I was finished getting ready yelling, "Who wants their picture taken?!"  Actually all of them were like, "ME!"  haha.  I didn't post all of the info about every picture because I'm too lazy to go look them all up.

f/4

1/100
iso400
70mm

f/5.6

1/100
iso400
208 mm

Turns out he was not that in to it...

f/4.5

1/250
iso400
79mm



Playing

 Okay so I decided to play around a little bit.  I played with the color and maybe the exposure too I can't even remember.  I just did it in the Windows Photo Gallery program that I upload all my pics to on my computer.  I'm not sure how I feel about it honestly.  I think it looks kinda cool, but maybe too fake.  I dunno, I guess like we've talked about, there's really no "right" or "wrong" but does it just look dumb?  Seriously, you can't/won't hurt my feelings right now because I am so new at this, I have no opinion of my pictures.  I'm just trying to figure out what looks good and what doesn't, AND how to do it. :-)  I want pure honesty.  Here is the original pic.  Overexposed?  His face looks a little washed out, huh?

 f/8
1/125
iso400
135mm
I like seeing what my the settings on my camera were cause now I can see, I could have sped up the shutter speed right?

...and here is another original.  Underexposed right? 

 f/9
1/125
iso100
250mm
Could have opened up the aperture...?  it was cloudy, but if opening up the aperture worked, is the iso ok or should i have bumped that up since it was not a sunny day, at all, and iso 100 is for a very sunny day right?

So in windows photo gallery, I pushed the "auto correct" button and got this...

and then brightened it a little bit more cause I thought it needed more...does this one look a little grainy?  His cheeks do to me, or something...

Indoor light

Today was freezing outside and rained most of the day so I tried to practice taking pics indoors.  This was in my living room with some light from the window shining in on Alyssa's face.  Obviously, there's a bunch of ugly random stuff in the background.  It looks so blah to me.  I just thought that the light on her face looked pretty good, maybe what I was aiming for...?  Or is it not good?  I have no idea.  Having not played in photoshop, I just don't know how much of the blah-ness is because I'm not doing anything to it in photoshop, and how much of it is because I'm just not doing things right on my camera to begin with...  Do you know what I mean?  Any critiquing on this photo would be super helpful, I'm curious.  I guess just on the exposure.  but anything else too... :-)

f/4.5

1/60

iso800

84mm

Riding bikes

I tried some action shots today.  I felt like I was all over the place, changing the fstop and shutterspeed to try and get the best exposure.  Then I put it in auto and they used a much higher shutterspeed than I was using...they used up to 1600.  There is so much to learn!

f/5.6
1/500
iso200
135mm

 Is this photo overexposed?  Do people shoot that way on purpose sometimes?  p.s. this is a typical look for Kylie...outside riding her bike in pajamas with messy hair.  Usually her hair is down and messy but I convinced her to let me put it up so I could at least see some of her face. 

f/10
1/125
iso200
116mm

ISO

f/5.6
1/100
iso1600
250mm

Is 1600 crazy?  When do you use 1600?  I tried it cause I wanted it to be/thought it needed a little more light, but is it overexposed now?  I can't really tell.  It does look a little light, but I don't know.  Is there something else I could have done to let more light in?  I'm guessing I wouldn't want to go any slower on the shutter speed.  Should I have opened the aperature more?  But then I wouldn't have gotten as blurry of a background, right? 

More exposure experiments

f/5.6
1/160
iso800
250mm

This picture was taken around 4:30.  The sun was on it's way down, behind the houses.  Alyssa was a good sport posing for me.  In these pics I'm just trying to practice getting the exposure right, not caring as much about what the subject is doing, although this one is pretty cute.

Exposure - Spit Bubbles

Okay, so, I was looking through my pictures again and found these that I took of Alyssa this morning before she left for school.  First I took this one, not really even realizing what my settings were at....

f/5
1/160
iso 800
109 mm

Then, I realized that the iso was really high, so I lowered it and also sped up the shutter speed a little...totally experimenting here.  This was picture number 2:

f/5
1/200
iso400
109 mm

I think they were probably both at the wrong settings, but I like the look of the first one better...the second one looks a little gray to me or something.  It probably should have been iso 200 (well, I don't know, it was like 8:00 in the morning and the sun was rising on the other side of the house) and maybe a shutterspeed of more around the 300's?  I really don't know.  Thoughts?

First try

f/5
1/320
iso 200

focal length 131 mm