Been asked to take photos of a baby.

[greenphotos]

Hi all,



First post here so here goes!

I have been asked to take some nice photos of our neighbours with thier baby. I have done lots of photography before (weddings/closeup/lansdscape/night/wildlife), but I have not done any studio work. I have got 2 Pentax Film SLRs, but I have borrowed a Pentax *istDS so it's all free, and I can give them the pics on CD. I pretty much know my way round Photoshop7 so post processing would be fine to get rid of any unwanted items in the photo.

I am worried about the lighting, I have flash that I can use off camera with the slave feature watching for the camera flash, so hope to use that, and had the idea of putting a white sheet on the sofa so there isn't too much distraction in the photo.

I should be ok getting it to smile, as it's a 'happy' baby. It is just starting to stand up while clinging onto our trousers (my wife is getting broody...)

Anyway, any help would be very much appreciated as I am due round there at the weekend...:-?



I look forward to posting on this site, the quality of photos I have seen so far is outstanding!





Cheers!

Mark Green

:bye:

[JimC]

greenphotos wrote:

I am worried about the lighting, I have flash that I can use off camera with the slave feature watching for the camera flash, so hope to use that, and had the idea of putting a white sheet on the sofa so there isn't too much distraction in the photo.

Welcome to the forums Mark.

A DSLR uses a preflash to help judge exposure (because the sensors are too reflective for something like off the film metering during the flash). I'm not talking about redeye reduction or flash bursts for focus assist. It's a metering flash.

This preflash is barely perceptible to most people (happens very fast, before the main flash).

But, it will trigger an optical slave (so, the slave fires before the main flash fires, which can happen before the shutter is fully open), unless the slave is designed to work with digital (some are).

You can buy slave triggers designed for digital (Wein makes some). These ignore the preflash (actually, a short burst of preflashes from many models). Again, it's very fast (so most people don't notice it).

Another way around it is to get a cheap non-dedicated flash (a non-dedicated flash won't use a preflash), and use it to trigger your slaves instead.

[greenphotos]

Thanks! I'll remember that. - V useful...

How about composition?

[JohnG]

Do a search on pbase for baby photo - you'll get a ton of images to look at to give you some ideas.

[greenphotos]

Thanks

[tmoreau]

I keep wondering, could you set the flash to manual to eliminate the preflashes? I *think* this worked on my A1, but havent looked close at the 5D yet.

[JimC]

I didn't see an option to set power level for the internal flash in the screens shown in our *istDS review, unless that screen was miseed. It wouldn't hurt to dig through the menus and manual to make sure.

As for Konica-Minolta, the KM 5D does not allow manual power settings for it's built in flash. But, the KM 7D does (so it could be used in manual mode without a pre-flash to trigger slaves).

[greenphotos]

Just got back from taking the photos

Very well behaved baby.

Here is one of the shots

Thanks for all your help and advice :|