# Newborn photography advice



## NickTB (Feb 4, 2007)

Afternoon all.
My daughter Francesca was born a week ago and of course all three cameras and the iPhone have come into play! 
I'm looking for advice on which settings to use for indoor photo's with no flash. As she's only a week old she is still quite jerky and as such a large proportion of the shots are blurred. 

Weapon of choice for these shots is my 20d with a sigma 15-30 lens.
Ay advice would be more than welcome! :thumb:

Cheers,

Nick


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## bretti_kivi (Apr 22, 2008)

bounced, remote flash..... and maybe let her sleep as she'll look even cuter.

Other than that, keeping the shutter speed above 1/50 should help.

Bret


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## OutLore (Jan 19, 2007)

Indoor shots with no flash are not easy unless your subject is very still (which babies tend not to be) or you have some large aperture lenses (f1.4, f1.8, f2.0...)

If you have a spare bit of cash, look at getting a 50mm f1.8 as this will help enormously, however as with all large aperture lenses, focus becomes very critical and the depth of focus will be very shallow.

However - as has been suggested, bouncing the flash (off a ceiling, wall or reflector which could just be a large peice of card) will help as it presents a much softer light, and will not startle baby. 

Failing that, place baby by a window and use as much natural light as possible.

Congrats by the way


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## Brazo (Oct 27, 2005)

I took a lovely shot of my niece using the kit zoom at full stretch and wide open, yes the corners weren't sharp but thats ideal in a portrait of this nature so dont worry. I went iso 800 and she was sat next to a window with diffused natural lighting. I won't post it in here as doubtless my brother doesn't want pictures of his child on the web but it was good for printing up to A3 from an APS-C sensor.


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## slim_boy_fat (Jun 23, 2006)

I'd not use a lens with that focal range. In general, wide angle lenses cause distortion in portraiture.


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## bretti_kivi (Apr 22, 2008)

... 30s are fine, especially the new ones, but much below 24 I really wouldn't go.

Bret


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## AcN (Nov 3, 2010)

I NEVER use flash for newborn : their eyes are too fragile for now, and all it's gonna do is make them wear glasses in 3 years. You don't want that.

I would use some indirect continuous lighting (even your flood light used when you wanna spot the swirls ), then correct the color temperature in a post-process (i never use the in-camera light settings, or just use a fixed 5400-5500K when using my flash generator)

If you get distorsions out of your lens, there are many way to correct it, may it be manually or automatically via a plug-in or external software.


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## BRYHER (Aug 19, 2008)

try here . Congratulations http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech.htm very informative.
All the best 
Michael


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## NickTB (Feb 4, 2007)

Thanks for the replies. Looks like another nifty fifty is in the offing!


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## Beancounter (Aug 31, 2006)

NickTB said:


> Thanks for the replies. Looks like another nifty fifty is in the offing!


Make sure you check out Kerso on Talk Photography, I think he is one of the cheapeast around for the Canon 50mm F1.8 II :thumb:

Kerso thread or seems Amazon is a similar price.


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## NickTB (Feb 4, 2007)

Beancounter said:


> Make sure you check out Kerso on Talk Photography, I think he is one of the cheapeast around for the Canon 50mm F1.8 II :thumb:
> 
> Kerso thread or seems Amazon is a similar price.


Bought my last nifty from him! He's a good guy to deal with


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