Newborn Photoshoot

Well, it’s another weekend – another photo session. This week we had photographed Ava – an amazing 3 weeks old bundle of joy. As always, taking pictures of infants is challenging but rewarding if you know the tips and tricks.

Tip of the day (for new parents): Don’t use conventional cameras to photograph your newborns – pediatricians DON’T recommend using direct flash in a newborns eyes as the eyes are weak. The musculature of the eye as well as the nerves of the eye need time to strengthen and develop. I highly recommend either getting an external flash and learning how to properly use it or hiring a professional photographer.

Another happy mama …

This weekend I had the joy of photographing a beautiful baby – 3 month old Danny. Needless to say, both I and the parents were very happy with the outcome. Take a look for yourself.

This is how the magic happens …

It’s all in the eyes

I was asked a familiar questions yesterday “What advice can you give parents who want to take better pictures of their kids?”. To be honest, there are infinite number of techniques and approaches to taking “better” pictures both technically and conceptually.

One of the trends I’ve noticed has to do with a rapidly growing number of DSLR armature photographers - most of these photographers (and I use the term loosely here) heavily rely on PhD technique (Push here, Dummy). Not to say that cameras these days don’t do a good job focusing, however at a close distance, some lenses produce shallow depth of field, so shallow in fact that a camera focuses on the subjects nose making the eyes appear out of focus.

Getting back to the basic of what makes a “people picture” good – for one, the viewer has to be able to connect with the subject. Connecting with a portrait of a fuzzy-eyed baby is very difficult if not impossible (loving parents aside).

The morale of the story is that on close up shots with shallow depth of field, take control of the focal points and aim for the eyes.

Ok Shot

Better Shot

Let me know if my blabbering is useful to any of you … otherwise, I’ll just stop with my uninvited advices.

S.

White Balance for dummies

WB – White Balance is an art unknown to many beginning and amateur photographers. Now a days digital cameras are advanced enough to make “best guess estimate” on what kind of light is being captured and adjust the picture accordingly. Below is an example of the “best guess estimate” taken of my wife at a supermarket yesterday

 

As you can see, she’s holding a set of grey cards, you can also tell the image has a yellow tint. These cards are used as reference points to set the correct WB during post processing (can also be set as “Custom WB” in the camera itself). The resulting image is now properly white balanced.

 

In Adobe Lightroom, use the “White Balance Selector” tool to pick a neutral shade (a.k.a the grey card).

Once the ‘calibration image’ is captured for a given light environment, you can use it to color correct the remaining images in that batch.

Maternity Photoshoot – Work Revealed

Last month I photographed a couple in their last trimester, today  they released the rights to several photographs for me to share with you, my friends and followers:

There’s more to this than meets the eye but I can’t share the really revealing photographs with you in respect to my clients.

If you, or anyone you know, is interested in this type of a photoshoot, feel free to email me at s@bestnycphoto.com.

Your friend,

S.

Thoughts on equipment for traveling

I have recently realized how my humble collection of techno-geeky photographic equipment has grown above and beyond anything I could have imagined just several years ago. This awakening came over me when I had to return a recently purchased photo backpack in favor of the “extra large” backpack at B&H.

Not to show off what’s in the backpack (because anybody with enough dough can purchase the same set and having spent six grand on lenses does not make anyone a good photographer) I just want to list the items to give you an idea of equipment I haul around to weddings and other photo shoots:

• Canon 5D Body with Vertical Grip
• Canon 24-70 2.8 Lens
• Canon 70-200 2.8 IS Lens
• Canon 50 1.8 Lens
• Canon 15 2.8 Lens
• Canon 100 2.8 Macro Lens
• Canon 17-40  Lens
• 2 Canon Flashes
• EEEPC (covered in a post below)
• Batteries, Cables, Chargers, Card Reader, External HD for backups  ….

As you, avid photographers can imagine, this arsenal of lenses and electronics weights close to a small elephant. Although all of this equipment fits into the extra large backpack, traveling with this small elephant on your back in exhaustive and that’s where  the challenge of picking the right stuff comes in.

To be honest, it took me a very long time to find the right recipe for what to take on the road. Naturally, I want to bring all my toys with me but practically, I needed a good range of lenses to get me through the vacation without killing my  back. It’s also worth noticing that one of the Canon 5D’s caveats is that it does not have a built in flash – this means that I always carry an external speedlight.

So … to make the long story short, through experimentation of trial and error, I found the best equipment to haul around town, or bring overseas, is:

• Canon 5D Body without Vertical Grip
• Canon 24-70 2.8 Lens
• Canon 70-200 2.8 IS Lens
• Canon 580 EX  Flash
• Batteries, Chargers, Card Reader, Cables

… and miracously, all of  this fits into my smaller slingback bag. When traveling oversees, the EEEPC will prove to be a savior (this, I have yet to test) for backups, quick editing, blogging and communications when on the road.

Your friend and student of life

S.

Celina's Photoshoot

I was hired today to photoshoot the 16m/o Celina and it was a blast. Not only did my wife’s “every child should get a toy from you” approach worked magic, the parents and the model herself were great to work with. I will be processing the images from this session later this week and plan to put some of them into my online portfolio at http://www.bestnycphoto.com where you, my friends, can find cream of the crop of my vision and artistic design.

I have used a variety of light sources including natural light, on axis flash and off camera flashes.

Also, I lately found myself growing fond of Vignetting, positive (below) and negative (above). Tell me what you think of it.

Your friend. Mr. S.