Lessons Learned From Family Photos

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to take some photos of one a friend’s family. They are expecting their second child in August and wanted to get some photos of the prego belly and the family together. And they asked me to do it for them. I was flattered and scared.

My wife and I scouted the location before the family arrived and we were able to get some pretty decent pictures. By the end of the relatively short shoot, I was extremely exhausted and learned a few lessons.

LESSONS LEARNED

  1. FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS. I need to take extra care to hit the focus right on. That may mean stopping down a bit to help. Especially when shooting a 2.5 year old.
  2. Don’t forget to pay attention to exposure AND composition. At a certain point in the shoot, I forgot to double check my exposure settings when I was worried about getting my composition right. Both are equally important.
  3. Posing people is hard. And I need to learn how to pose subjects and clearly communicate to subjects what to do.
  4. Eat before a shoot. I should have had dinner before, but got too busy. Having a better blood sugar level would have helped calm me down and have a clearer head about me.

All in all, it was a fun to experience my first family photo session. Here is a little peak at a few of the photos.

Link Roundup: Which Lenses to Buy?

I love gear. And I admit I have a problem: I spend way too much time coveting the latest and greatest instead of shooting photos or filming. One of the things I love to do is find people’s recommended gear list, especially for lenses. So to save you the trouble of hunting down other people’s lists, I’ll post a few of the lists that I think are pretty good.

Rebel T2i: Getting Steady Footage

When I decided to get a Canon T2i/550D for shooting video instead of a proper video camera, I knew there would be some significant challenges that I’d need to work around. One of those challenges is capturing audio (which I talked about here and here). Another big challenge is getting steady footage.

In the past, I’d been used to heavier cameras with stabilization built-in. When not using a tripod, I was able to get pretty darn steady footage. But now I’ve got to work at making sure my footage doesn’t look like I was shooting my kids soccer game with a FlipHD. Can you say EARTHQUAKE!?!

Okay, maybe it’s not quite that bad. But my point is this: you need to be intentional to get steady, professional looking footage.

Tools to Help

Lenses with Stabilization

When you are not shooting using a tripod or when you don’t really need your aperture super wide, a lens with built-in stabilization will help you out quite a bit. If you bought your T2i (or similar camera) with the kit lens, chances are you have a lens with Image Stabilization (Nikon & other third-party lens makers have other names for it). The kit lens is okay, but you’ll probably want a lens with a constant aperture so you can effectively zoom without cutting your light intake. Here are a couple recommendations.

Read More»

Rebel T2i: Audio Option Comparison

A couple months ago, I posted a quick audio test for shooting video on a Canon Rebel T2i/550D. Today, I decided to shoot another quick T2i audio comparison that includes using the onboard mic, a Røde NTG-2 shotgun microphone, and a Zoom H4n digital recorder.

I know it’s not super pretty, but I think you can assess the difference between the options. If’s it’s helpful to you, let me know and I’ll try to post more videos of this sort.

P.S. If you want a little more info, leave a comment or check out my audio setup post.

Photo Shoot Tag Along

Last night, I had the privilege of tagging along for a photo shoot with my cousin Diandra Ann Photography. She was up in Portland visiting family and booked a shoot while here. I had known she was planning on shooting while up here, so I asked if I could see what she does and how she shoots. What a better way to learn then to watch a pro work!

My role for the night was chauffeur and location scout since both Diandra and her client, Sarah of Yellow Eleven Photography, were from out of town. We wound through country roads stopping occasionally at a spot that stuck out to Diandra.

5 Things I Learned

I was able to shoot a little while Diandra was at work, but I did a whole lot of listening, watching, and learning.

  1. I’m afraid that I am going to get into people’s personal space, but when you are shooting people it’s okay.
  2. Being able to give good direction makes a world of difference. This is something that Diandra excelled at.
  3. Show people what to do, don’t just tell them.
  4. It’s okay if a setting/position doesn’t work. Move on.
  5. I undershoot. It’s okay for me to shoot a little more and sort it out later.

A Few Of My Shots

Sarah MayfieldSarah Mayfield

Sarah MayfieldSarah & Diandra

7 Textures From The Outdoors

Have you ever had one of those days when you are eating lunch at your desk and you start nodding off to sleep? That was my day today. To fight the lunch time snooze, I decided to take my Rebel T2i and head outside. And the product of that 30 minutes outside is 7 decent textures.

Feel free to use them download them and use them how you see fit. Just don’t sell them or redistribute them. And give credit when appropriate.

I hope you enjoy them!

Asphalt TextureBrick TextureConcrete TextureGrass Texture 01Grass Texture 02Bark Chip Texture
Doormat Texture

30 Days of Photos

Thirty days ago my wife suggested that I start taking at least one photo a day. It seemed like a great idea since I’ve decided to make photography a hobby. This project has helped me grow immensely. I know many of my photos are nothing great, but that’s what you get when you remember at 10 PM that you still need to take a photo for the day.

Here is a gallery of my first 30 days of the project. And yes, I did miss a couple days.

Page 1 of 212

Amazon Goodness

Advertisments

© Copyright James Polits