What am I doing wrong? Pictures lack the "wow" factor.

Adam

Adam

Adam

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18 Oct 2002
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I took a number of pictures this morning of my son ready for Christmas cards and while they are nice pictures, I feel they really lack the wow factor that I see on these forums.

I appreciate I am a beginner but I'd like to open myself up to criticism and advice to make myself a better photographer.

So, do your worst :)

Note that I placed a desk lamp to the left of my son to add some extra light but this may not necessarily have helped matters. These were shot as RAW and are straight out of the camera.

Edit: these were shot with a 60D using a Tamron 17-50mm non-vc lens at f2.8

Harry as a reindeer:

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Harry eating Sophie:

IMG_0185.jpg
 
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I think that since they are raw photos, they lack, what you called, the wow factor. Editing can sort that out.

Imo, they are very very good photos. Your son is very cute btw :) (no pedo!)
 
raw files do generally look very flat without any processing. Run these through lightroom or similar and they will soon 'pop' :)
 
The compositions are really boring, that is why there is no wow factor. Processing will help as well.

I would get some books and start learning the art and design aside of photography.
 
The__Malteser said:
I think that since they are raw photos, they lack, what you called, the wow factor. Editing can sort that out.

Imo, they are very very good photos. Your son is very cute btw :) (no pedo!)
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Thank you, he is a good kid :) These were my favourite 2 from 30+ we took in various silly outfits!

As he is sitting against the background I wouldn't expect extreme DOF but they both just appear to be missing something and I can't figure out what. I see loads of sliders to change etc but I don't know where to start or have a very creative eye!
 
Get yourself a 50mm prime and you will see your images become a lot sharper, the nifty fifty at about £80 is probably the best photography investment I ever made.

Try and remember the rule of thirds when composing, focus on his eyes and take it from there.
 
They look a tad under exposed to me, could be the iPad though heh

The first one could do with some contrasting colours, everything looks very brown/beige very samey , the background is a little distracting too because of the line where the cover is I front of the wall and the shadows too. I like the composition though.

The second one has too much of that cover or sheet whatever it is in the shot and again the colours all seem to blend in and become very samey, there's a bit of knee in the bottom of the frame which is distracting and I don't like the child looking away for the camera ,

Id much prefer it if he was smiling into the lens with focus on his eyes and smile, a tighter portrait crop around him and a bit of contrast / interesting light
 
Light is pretty rubbish, ideally you want a soft light source (large light source relative to subject/distance from subject. If you had better lowlight capabilities you would have been better off turning the lamp around and bouncing it off a wall.
2.8 on a crop isn't really fast to be good in lowlight imo, f1.4 is where it's at.

For a quick fix, borrow you GF's makeup mirror, and put it in front of the pop up flash. The idea is to reflect the light behind you. You should then see a dramatic improvement.
 
Eye contact - thats what you need. I suspect his mother was standing to one side of you making him keeping him intersted? If that is the case get her to stand directly behind you so he is looking directly at the camera.

A plain background would be better - a nice white sheet or something a little darker to make him stand out.

Try to use diffused light rather than harsh directional light. Light through a net curtain on a nice sunny day or as daft as it might seem, make yourself a light tent that is big enough to sit/lie your son in will give a nice result.
 
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Ok so taking the comments on board I think I need to improve the following:

Composition: Being 11 weeks old I can't think how else I could prop him up but I don't think the throw adds anything to the shot. I'll find something more plain and neutral next time. I tried something different in the 2nd shot as the flash directly at him created all kind of shadows.

Light: Some good suggestions, I may invest in a better flash like the Canon 430ex II so I can point it upwards for some full flash.

Editing: I get the feeling that if you don't get the composition and lighting right then you still can't perform miracles so these aspects are the most important. However, I still think this is something I need to read up on.

Is that a fair summary?

I do have a Sigma 30mm 1.4 which I will try next time but I went with the zoom so I could move around more (mrs was moaning at me to hurry up as he was getting grizzly!).
 
Adam said:
Composition: Being 11 weeks old I can't think how else I could prop him up but I don't think the throw adds anything to the shot. I'll find something more plain and neutral next time. I tried something different in the 2nd shot as the flash directly at him created all kind of shadows.
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Wait until he is asleep. Pictures of babies sleeping in silly hats - they make people go awwww :)

Flickr has quite a few to give you some ideas

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=sleeping baby with hat

As for the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 (I take it you did mean a 35mm rather than a 30mm?) - I think you will find on a Crop sensor camera such as the 60D it will do nicely.
 
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Andy90 said:
Wait until he is asleep. Pictures of babies sleeping in silly hats - they make people go awwww :)

Flickr has quite a few to give you some ideas

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=sleeping baby with hat

As for the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 (I take it you did mean a 35mm rather than a 30mm?) - I think you will find on a Crop sensor camera such as the 60D it will do nicely.
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We had some professional shots one when he was 4 weeks old, the woman was awesome but had the patience of a saint :p they came out really well done, they were very similar to the Flickr link above.

I'll give the Sigma lens a try next time, I will also invest in a speedlite too.
 
sHo0sH said:
Get yourself a 50mm prime and you will see your images become a lot sharper, the nifty fifty at about £80 is probably the best photography investment I ever made.

Try and remember the rule of thirds when composing, focus on his eyes and take it from there.
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You can't really tell sharpness from a small image posted on the web, IMO that's "bad" advice. A new isn't going to help the issues. A new flash perhaps (and the knowledge of how to use it). The 17-50 is a very sharp lens in it's own right.

OP, the second image shows him slap bang in the middle of the image, he needs to be offset so he's in a third. The first image looks good but the light isn't brilliant, especially the shadow on the back wall. Aside from all that, as mentioned, the best photos have had lots of post processing done to them, which is an art in itself. It takes a while to get good at it but give it a go, adjust the curves a little for added contrast and adjust the "vibrance" and "clarity" a bit too, all pretty easy fixes that help a lot.
 
Lightroom - crop, contrast, exposure, brightness, curves, vignette, blue shadow and yellow highlight split tone with a little brush adjustments here and there then give it a sharpen and noise reduction if necessary and you're golden!

EDIT: A flash would be a great idea along with the knowledge on how to use it (strobist 101). I would highly recommend a Yongnuo 565 or 568.
 
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I can't show an example right now because I'm not at my pc but it gives a nice vintage feel. Basically you are giving the shaded and highlighted areas a colour 'tint', ie the shadows are tinted blue for example. Some people don't like it but others (like me) really enjoy using it.
 
I'm surprised that it took to post 8 for someone to say light.

Light is the key factor with any photo, even above editing or lenses. Get yourself a flash or two, check out the strobist site + loads of youtube videos.

Everything else such as composition, eye contact etc really depends on the look that you are going for. If you want studio looking photos then yes, backgrounds, eye contact, catch lights etc are all very important.

If you're going after good looking candid shots then there's nothing wrong with what you have, but extra light would have really helped. It would have removed the dark shadow line through the first one and just lifted the second.

All this eye contact, smiling in to the camera isn't always possible with such young kids who don't understand what "say cheese" means, you simply do the best you can, take a lot and pick the best. btw, you don't need smiles, or eye contact to make a lovely photo, but it does help.

Get over to talk photography and check out the portrait section, study photos you like and don't be afraid to ask advice and how they were achieved.

When they get older, bouncing the light of the ceiling etc you will really start to get some cracking shots:


Evie's 1st bday by Stu_Farnell, on Flickr

that shot was a bounced flash taken from above. Editing involve removing a part of a ball from the top right and believe it or not, adding a left foot in as it was actually under her skirt and it looked odd. So copied the right, flipped it, tweaked it and there you go, 2 feet!

We really should have a photography tutorial section on here for editing and taking photos!
 
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Thank you all for your comments, it seems I have a lot to learn and I completely underestimated what a complex subject photography is. Having good kit doesn't make you a good photographer!

I posted the same question on talkphotography and got ripped to shreds, lots of good information as well though so I'm going to give it another shot once I have bought a 430EX speedlite.

AHarvey: That's a fantastic picture, I think I saw some of your other shots in the sigma thread and those were exactly what I had in mind. Hopefully one day I'll be able to produce something similar. Thank you! :)
 
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