First photoshoot of kids- headshots

<p>Hi everyone! If anything in here has been asked recently in a thread, please direct me. I hate adding to the threads if unnecessary. I searched and found a lot of my answers, but still have a few. I just have to say how much I love this website! It has really helped me a ton so far ;)</p>

<p>I have my first photoshoot tomorrow for someone that I don't know- so I'm a bit nervous just because of that. I've only shot friends, family and models from classes/workshops. So any tips for my general MANNER as a photographer would be great. I'd like to think I'm a people person, but I know the subject will feed off of my energy. So I'd like to be cool and collected but DIRECT. I am shooting two little girls tomorrow (I think 3 and 6). The Mom wants headshots to get them into commercial stuff here in LA. </p>

<p>1. What is the best time to start an outdoor/naturally lit shoot? I said I'd arrive at 7am, hope to start shooting by 7:30-8am. <br>

2. How goofy/entertaining do I need to be with kids? What are the challenges with shooting them compared to adults? Besides focus obviously...<br>

3. I'm shooting with a Canon 40D 50mm 1.4 (thanks to reading other thread suggestions). I am bringing a 580ex ii flash with a Gary Fong diffuser. I should only use the flash if I really need it right? Shouldn't natural lighting be more ideal/fine at that time of day? Or is it a good idea to experiment with both if time permits?<br>

4. What are good backgrounds for their headshots- trees, textured wall? Anything else to suggest? We will be at their home. These should be more playful than serious, right? I guess that depends on what kind of commercial work their Mom wants them to do. Try to capture serious and playful?</p>

<p>That's it. If you have general tips I appreciate it!</p>

<p>1. It depends on the day & location. In general, yes, early morning or evening shots will give you a better quality of light than say noon. <br>

2. I suppose that depends on the kids.<br>

3. To start, a GFLS is next to completely useless outdoors. It is a <em>bounce</em> diffuser. As to whether to use flash, you need to ask yourself two questions: what am I taking a picture of? And how do I want it to look? Then use your knowledge to go about making it happen. If you need to use flash to make your shot work, you have your answer. Or look for the right available light to make your shot work. <br>

4. I would certainly clarify with the client. For a headshot, I prefer a longer lens to give you a creamier out-of-focus background. At which point you are looking for interesting light in the background. Light colored backgrounds for dark colored hair, darker colored backgrounds for light colored hair.</p>

<p>3:- To me the only reason to use a flash is either there is insufficient ambient light or that as it strikes the subjects it is objectionably contrasty, and the eye is more tolerant of this than the camera. The idea is to bring the light level up in the shadows to a nice balance with the sunlit areas. If it is obvious that flash has been used it is too strong and if you have not already done syncro-sunlight work I do not really think that this assignment is the place to start. A starting point is for the flash to be between one and two stops less than for a normal flash exposure. I suspect that this can be programmed into the camera rather than working with guide numbers which is the old way of working. That was covered in a thread where a woman took a photo of a man in the shade beside a stream in front of a sunlit background, last month and it isn't accessable from this forum page, unless I missed it.<br>

I would look for situations where there is a wall or something reflecting sunlight back at the subjects but who knows what you will find on arrival ... sorry.<br>

2:- A trick I developed to attract childrens' attention was to wiggle my little finger while my fore-finger was resting on the trigger .. works for adults too :-) A bit awkward to do with camera in vertical 'portrait' format rather than landscape. <br>

I also developed the practice of keeping both eyes open after one little 'so-and-so' [male] mimmiced me closing my eye [ I'm left eyed so my right eye is in full view with camera covering only the left side of my face]. Maybe it is the same for right eyed people only in reverse.</p>

Thanks for the responses. I really like the tips about dark hair on light background, etc. Great to keep in mind! I also

appreciate all the suggestions on the flash and lighting. I took a flash workshop and learned to do fill flash, which I

figured might be useful, but I didn't need any flash on this shoot. I didn't realize the GFLS was a bounce diffuser! I

have a lot to learn still.

The shoot went ok, but I was disappointed in my results with the lens (50mm 1.4). It is a great lens, with beautiful

boka.. but seemed slow. The focus didn't seem to catch as quickly as it should. Is this typical or could the lens have been old? It was a rental. I ended up doing more candid/lifestyle shots than staged portraits, so the kids were moving around a lot. It seems like a lot of camera shake was happening, a lot of not so crisp shots. I felt annoyed with being too zoomed in with the 50mm in a tighter space

also. I really want to continue the lifestyle shots, and don't want to be so restricted with cropping, especially if I don't have the space to move my body to zoom out. I just really like the boka that was created with the 50mm 1.4., and need to find a lens

that will achieve this along with the zooming out below 50mm. Any lens suggestions for the canon 40D are appreciated! I only have the 28-90mm 4.0 at the moment.

Maybe I'll upload images from my shoot for critique. Thanks again!

<p>The 50mm f1.4 does not have the same focusing motor as the other Canon lens, so it is slower to focus. However, I notice most beginners have overly high expectations for autofocus anyway. :^)</p>

<p>When doing lifestyle shots, it is not so great to use that lens wide open, due to depth of field. Do some searches on this topic and learn about it. I'd bet that some of your blurry shots are OOF shots, and others are focus errors (very hard to focus accurately, particulary on moving subjects, with a wide aperture).</p>

<p>Realize that bokeh--actually you are talking about shallow DOF--is not everything. (Bokeh refers to the <strong>quality</strong> of out of focus parts). I totally agree that having shallow DOF is great for shots of individuals and even small groups, to separate subjects from the background. But for shots where there are more than a couple of people, and you have depth to the image, and for shots where the subject is moving, you are going to cripple yourself severely if you insist on shooting at apertures such as f1.4 all the time.</p>

<p>It can be done successfully, but you have to practice using AI Servo--know how it works--and shoot A LOT, to end up with some that are in focus. That can be iffy when dealing with fleeting expressions. With kids, you may never get that expression again.</p>

<p>As far as the 'zooming out', get a mid range zoom lens, but you will find that most zooms don't got wider in aperture than f2.8. With a cropped sensor camera, f2.8 isn't as 'creamy' in shallow DOF as one might hope for. When you 'zoom out' as well, the DOF 'rules' change--wide focal lengths have more DOF. Two other things affect DOF--focal length and subject distance. Do your searches and read about DOF.</p>

<p>A good mid range zoom that doesn't cost a lot--for cropped sensor cameras ia a Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 or the new Sigma 17-50mm f2.8. You can probably find good used copies of the Tamron. The Sigma is too new.</p>