Shooting babies...

asteelo · 07-14-2009, 09:19 PM

I admit it, i like to shoot babies. Just after i steal candy from them.

Do any of you have some tips for me to get sharper, well exposed indoor shots of a constantly moving subject? His room faces south, so i can get some decent light in there, but it never seems like enough to run a fast shutter speed without upping the ISO to 800 or 1600.

Here are some handheld examples of me just messing around. I'm still learning. After i took these shots i picked up an old Velbon, which i have yet to try out.

Body: Pentax K10d
Glass: Pentax-da 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL (kit, too poor for anything else)

18mm 1/10sec F4.0 ISO 200 EV -0.5 Auto WB

18mm 1/8sec F3.5 ISO 200 EV +0.5 Cloudy WB

18mm 1/10sec F3.5 ISO 200 Cloudy WB

28mm 1/10sec F6.7 ISO 400 EV -0.5 Cloudy WB

55mm 1/15sec F5.6 ISO 400 Cloudy WB

43mm 1/15sec F4.5 ISO 400 Cloudy WB

plummy · 07-14-2009, 10:09 PM

imo, you're doing good to get the image as clear as you are at that slow of a speed.

you could just blind the guy with a few 150w lightbulbs and brighten up the room.

The #1 Dad · 07-14-2009, 10:29 PM

those little $10 garage lights work great for lighting up a room when you want a few pictures. just put them in a corner and aim them at the ceiling and they really light up a whole room. nothing obvious like oh he has super bright garage flood lights in his kids room... it just makes for sharp, clear photos of everything well lit.

DiamondCactus · 04-05-2010, 03:24 PM

I am nothing more than a hobbyist photographer, but what I have grown to love when shooting my daughter is the close crop shots, also don't always try to get just the fancy artistic shots you will miss out on some good memories.

I love you #3 shot good composition. I don't know how it would look with just a little tighter crop on the top. bringing it down to the top of the crib railing on the far side is the top of the pic.

Keep up the good work.

Tony S · 04-08-2010, 05:59 PM

Go ahead and up your ISO so you can get faster shutter speeds and close the lens down a bit. Personally a sharp photo with noise in it is much more pleasing than clean soft/blurred images. Find a piece of white poster board or foam core and bounce some more of that window light onto the baby.

Remember, when shooting babies you don't need to lead them quite as much as teenagers or adults.

Sam · 10-04-2010, 06:10 PM

I'm going to comment on every picture so this will be long...just a warning.

You said that lens is all you can afford. If you save up...I think they run around $70.00...the "plastic fantastic" which is the 50mm 1.8. I think it pretty much comes for every brand of camera and has been a lifesaver for me with my infant photography. I use my macro with some of it too, and my 17-40, but I'd say most often, I use my "plastic fantastic". You can get wide open with it, and I will often shoot at 2.8. You need to make sure you get your focus EXACT that way. Focus on the iris of the eye closest to you and don't do a focus and recompose because otherwise you'll end up with the eye out of focus and you always want the eyes in focus.

I would suggest setting the baby up in front of the biggest windows you have (unless this is it), on a sunny day, and use white foam core to bounce more light. Using shop lights is great. For one thing, they can add heat which makes the baby happier. I have "hot lights" which aren't flashes and while I hate them because of that, generally if I'm sweating then I know the naked little baby is going to be perfectly happy.

I ALWAYS try to keep my ISO at 100, or 200. I hate noise.

I only shoot RAW so I can adjust it a bit in post if I have to. I also try to have my shutter speed at 250 or so because I'm wobbly (I have epilepsy and my balance has gone bad ever since I developed that). If you are more steady, which it would certainly appear that you are, you can shoot much slower, but I wouldn't shoot any slower than 150 without a flash.

So...now the problem, how on earth do you get sharper shots with settings like that?! Bounce a flash! You can even use your pop-up-flash and bounce it if you use some opaque plastic and hold it in front of it to angle the light up. If you can get your hands on a very very cheap, very basic flash and even better, a cord to give you room to hold it away from the camera by a couple feet...fantastic. Then, you can aim it at the ceiling/wall behind you even which will diffuse the light and give a natural brightness and also help stop the motion.

Now, as for specific shots and critique...

#1 - has a blue colour cast and a bit of a distracting background. Even scooting him towards the wall a smidge and shooting through the bars with the bear near him so you can't see the bars would have helped. Better still would have been to lower the side of the crib and drape a plain white piece of fabric over the back edge of the crib so you have a simple backdrop to work with. Unless you were using a tripod and a cable release...you are my hero with how stable and how little camera motion blur is in this shot!

#2 - Love the arm rolls and you can tell there is an absolutely adorable look on his face. It is just lost by the angle of the camera. If you'd had eye contact here, and had cropped it so it was mostly just his face it would have been fantastic. Well, if it was really sharp. You were fighting a losing battle with your settings though and are simply amazing for having done what you managed!

#3 - I've never been a huge fan of pictures looking through the bars of a crib. The only time I've done it was when I worked in an orphanage in Albania because it amplified the jail like feel that the children deal with on a daily basis. This one is kind of cold because he's not even looking at you. Your colour is much closer to right here though.

#4 - Fantastic eye contact and half grin, he is simply beautiful. I just wish you'd been able to use a flash to get the exposure correct and a reflector (even just a piece of white paper would help) to open up the shadows and get some catchlights in his eyes.

#5 - The exposure is better, and you still have good eye contact, but the focus is so soft it is just difficult to look at. You start to wonder if your eyes are out of focus.

I do like having a parent involved in some of the shots, and showing hand comparison size is always good.

#6 - Even better exposure than on #5. Look at the catchlights though. You want to try to aim them so they aren't coming from below. Rotate him so that they are coming from above. Our brain is programmed to expect the light to come from above (ie., the sun), and when it comes from below we start getting the freaky Halloween, flashlight under the chin feeling sometimes and it isn't as comforting and gentle a result as it would be if you'd rotated him around. Here as with all of them you are fighting the losing battle with your focus. You have amazing control for what you were working with, but it won't be as sharp as you'd want with the settings you had. I kind of like the "looking off in the distance look, but generally if they have their eyes open, try to get them looking at you in the pictures when they are this young.

This is one of my pictures which was taken almost completely with window light (I used one hot light which you could do with a couple shop lights or a flash). I have used some fleece I got from the fabric store (completely washable for when baby goes poo on it...which they often do, though I'm more lucky than most and the babies I shoot seem to go on their moms instead of me!). My settings were f 2.8, ISO 100, ss 1/125 I think (he was sleeping so I was able to shoot slower than my normal and was resting the camera on my knee...he was on a beanbag on the floor).

sfveazey · 11-20-2010, 10:22 AM

okay this last baby is so flippin cute! I want to snuggle with it!!

Sam · 11-26-2010, 10:07 PM

Lol, thank you, he was a doll in real life too. He was less than a week old. They are easiest to do gumby type poses with before 2 weeks of age. After that you have to deal with the fact that they don't sleep as much. Even still, it was hard to get this picture (others where you squish them up with their feet by their chin are easier to get amazingly enough). He wasn't incredibly pleased with me but his mom fed him tons right before so he ended up pretty much in a milk coma.

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07-14-2009, 09:19 PM	#1
asteelo Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Silverdale Posts: 116	Shooting babies... I admit it, i like to shoot babies. Just after i steal candy from them. Do any of you have some tips for me to get sharper, well exposed indoor shots of a constantly moving subject? His room faces south, so i can get some decent light in there, but it never seems like enough to run a fast shutter speed without upping the ISO to 800 or 1600. Here are some handheld examples of me just messing around. I'm still learning. After i took these shots i picked up an old Velbon, which i have yet to try out. Body: Pentax K10d Glass: Pentax-da 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL (kit, too poor for anything else) 18mm 1/10sec F4.0 ISO 200 EV -0.5 Auto WB 18mm 1/8sec F3.5 ISO 200 EV +0.5 Cloudy WB 18mm 1/10sec F3.5 ISO 200 Cloudy WB 28mm 1/10sec F6.7 ISO 400 EV -0.5 Cloudy WB 55mm 1/15sec F5.6 ISO 400 Cloudy WB 43mm 1/15sec F4.5 ISO 400 Cloudy WB

07-14-2009, 10:09 PM	#2
plummy Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Pooptown Posts: 375 My Camera: one pixel of awesome	imo, you're doing good to get the image as clear as you are at that slow of a speed. you could just blind the guy with a few 150w lightbulbs and brighten up the room.

07-14-2009, 10:29 PM	#3
The #1 Dad Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Oly Posts: 298	those little $10 garage lights work great for lighting up a room when you want a few pictures. just put them in a corner and aim them at the ceiling and they really light up a whole room. nothing obvious like oh he has super bright garage flood lights in his kids room... it just makes for sharp, clear photos of everything well lit.

04-05-2010, 03:24 PM	#4
DiamondCactus Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Tacoma, WA Posts: 10 My Camera: Nikon D90	I am nothing more than a hobbyist photographer, but what I have grown to love when shooting my daughter is the close crop shots, also don't always try to get just the fancy artistic shots you will miss out on some good memories. I love you #3 shot good composition. I don't know how it would look with just a little tighter crop on the top. bringing it down to the top of the crib railing on the far side is the top of the pic. Keep up the good work.

04-08-2010, 05:59 PM	#5
Tony S Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 140	Go ahead and up your ISO so you can get faster shutter speeds and close the lens down a bit. Personally a sharp photo with noise in it is much more pleasing than clean soft/blurred images. Find a piece of white poster board or foam core and bounce some more of that window light onto the baby. Remember, when shooting babies you don't need to lead them quite as much as teenagers or adults.

10-04-2010, 06:10 PM	#6
Sam Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Oregon Posts: 22 My Camera: Canon 5D Mark II	I'm going to comment on every picture so this will be long...just a warning. You said that lens is all you can afford. If you save up...I think they run around $70.00...the "plastic fantastic" which is the 50mm 1.8. I think it pretty much comes for every brand of camera and has been a lifesaver for me with my infant photography. I use my macro with some of it too, and my 17-40, but I'd say most often, I use my "plastic fantastic". You can get wide open with it, and I will often shoot at 2.8. You need to make sure you get your focus EXACT that way. Focus on the iris of the eye closest to you and don't do a focus and recompose because otherwise you'll end up with the eye out of focus and you always want the eyes in focus. I would suggest setting the baby up in front of the biggest windows you have (unless this is it), on a sunny day, and use white foam core to bounce more light. Using shop lights is great. For one thing, they can add heat which makes the baby happier. I have "hot lights" which aren't flashes and while I hate them because of that, generally if I'm sweating then I know the naked little baby is going to be perfectly happy. I ALWAYS try to keep my ISO at 100, or 200. I hate noise. I only shoot RAW so I can adjust it a bit in post if I have to. I also try to have my shutter speed at 250 or so because I'm wobbly (I have epilepsy and my balance has gone bad ever since I developed that). If you are more steady, which it would certainly appear that you are, you can shoot much slower, but I wouldn't shoot any slower than 150 without a flash. So...now the problem, how on earth do you get sharper shots with settings like that?! Bounce a flash! You can even use your pop-up-flash and bounce it if you use some opaque plastic and hold it in front of it to angle the light up. If you can get your hands on a very very cheap, very basic flash and even better, a cord to give you room to hold it away from the camera by a couple feet...fantastic. Then, you can aim it at the ceiling/wall behind you even which will diffuse the light and give a natural brightness and also help stop the motion. Now, as for specific shots and critique... #1 - has a blue colour cast and a bit of a distracting background. Even scooting him towards the wall a smidge and shooting through the bars with the bear near him so you can't see the bars would have helped. Better still would have been to lower the side of the crib and drape a plain white piece of fabric over the back edge of the crib so you have a simple backdrop to work with. Unless you were using a tripod and a cable release...you are my hero with how stable and how little camera motion blur is in this shot! #2 - Love the arm rolls and you can tell there is an absolutely adorable look on his face. It is just lost by the angle of the camera. If you'd had eye contact here, and had cropped it so it was mostly just his face it would have been fantastic. Well, if it was really sharp. You were fighting a losing battle with your settings though and are simply amazing for having done what you managed! #3 - I've never been a huge fan of pictures looking through the bars of a crib. The only time I've done it was when I worked in an orphanage in Albania because it amplified the jail like feel that the children deal with on a daily basis. This one is kind of cold because he's not even looking at you. Your colour is much closer to right here though. #4 - Fantastic eye contact and half grin, he is simply beautiful. I just wish you'd been able to use a flash to get the exposure correct and a reflector (even just a piece of white paper would help) to open up the shadows and get some catchlights in his eyes. #5 - The exposure is better, and you still have good eye contact, but the focus is so soft it is just difficult to look at. You start to wonder if your eyes are out of focus. I do like having a parent involved in some of the shots, and showing hand comparison size is always good. #6 - Even better exposure than on #5. Look at the catchlights though. You want to try to aim them so they aren't coming from below. Rotate him so that they are coming from above. Our brain is programmed to expect the light to come from above (ie., the sun), and when it comes from below we start getting the freaky Halloween, flashlight under the chin feeling sometimes and it isn't as comforting and gentle a result as it would be if you'd rotated him around. Here as with all of them you are fighting the losing battle with your focus. You have amazing control for what you were working with, but it won't be as sharp as you'd want with the settings you had. I kind of like the "looking off in the distance look, but generally if they have their eyes open, try to get them looking at you in the pictures when they are this young. This is one of my pictures which was taken almost completely with window light (I used one hot light which you could do with a couple shop lights or a flash). I have used some fleece I got from the fabric store (completely washable for when baby goes poo on it...which they often do, though I'm more lucky than most and the babies I shoot seem to go on their moms instead of me!). My settings were f 2.8, ISO 100, ss 1/125 I think (he was sleeping so I was able to shoot slower than my normal and was resting the camera on my knee...he was on a beanbag on the floor).

11-20-2010, 10:22 AM	#7
sfveazey Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Myrtle Creek, Oregon Posts: 1 My Camera: Canon T1i	okay this last baby is so flippin cute! I want to snuggle with it!!

11-26-2010, 10:07 PM	#8
Sam Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Oregon Posts: 22 My Camera: Canon 5D Mark II	Lol, thank you, he was a doll in real life too. He was less than a week old. They are easiest to do gumby type poses with before 2 weeks of age. After that you have to deal with the fact that they don't sleep as much. Even still, it was hard to get this picture (others where you squish them up with their feet by their chin are easier to get amazingly enough). He wasn't incredibly pleased with me but his mom fed him tons right before so he ended up pretty much in a milk coma.