sulka

<p>Gratz!<br>

Reiterating above answers from experience: support first, photography second. Be mentally prepared that you won't take a single shot during the birth, as the action can be intense. I only ended up getting post-birth shots myself, but I'm very happy with the shots, and do remember everything to a level of detail I wouldn't have expected, so no photographic remembrances are really needed. There simply wasn't any moment during the birth itself that presented the opportunity for photography, as I was needed for the more important support duty.<br>

For the post-birth documentation, I would suggest you consider the 5D mark II. I'm finding it's the perfect tool, as I can get the still shots, as well as video when needed. While stills are good for capturing the moment, video has it's place as well, as you will want to have audio capture of some moments too. Photo caption stating your kid is saying his first word isn't quite the same as actually hearing it.</p>

<p>Interesting, here's a point nobody above seemed to address:<br>

The "bloat" you're seeing in the portraits is due to the lens being a 50mm lens. A 50mm lens on a crop body still draws like a 50mm lens - the crop just causes the camera to capture a smaller area of the image drawn by the optics. The only place where you should really apply the crop factor, is in comparing the "draw area" of the lens between full frame and crop bodies. The cropping doesn't inherently change the optical behavior of the lenses, so you should expect any given focal length to behave the same, no matter if you're using a crop factor or full frame camera. Again, you're just capturing an area from the middle of the frame on the 40D.<br>

You're absolutely correct in saying that a 100mm lens draws a leaner portrait - the general thought seems to be the sweet spot for portraiture work in regards to focal length is 85mm. If you already have the 70-200 zoom (excellent piece of glass!), you have the glass you need for portraiture. On a crop body, you just need to stand back a bit more.</p>

One cause of confusion in this thread seems to be that some people are talking about DPI, and some about PPI.

PPI is Pixels Per Inch, and refers to the pixel data in the image file.

DPI is Dots Per Inch, and refers to the physical ink dots used by the printer to convey the image on the paper.

A Pixel contains full RGB (or CMYK) information in one pixel unit. Dots on the other hand are single color ink dots. To convey RGB

information, the printer needs to print multiple dots of ink. Hence the PPI figure is a measure of "more expressive" data, and you need

less PPI for any given DPI figure.

It seems Epson is recommending 180 PPI resolution for their printers, which sounds like a sensible figure. Assuming this is the

resolution to aim for with Epson, just check PS is showing you the "Pixels/inch" figure and try to keep that above 180. And ignore the

DPI figures in the printer.