Beginner Blog photographer wanting some help!

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caitlinjade95

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caitlin
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Hi guys, hope its ok to post on this thread!

I am a newbie but i love phorography. I recently got the Canon 600d and i love it! I only have the standard 18-55mm kit lens.

I know a fair bit about appeture and iso and i generally use is on AV mode (im still very unsure of shutter speed to use it manually!) but im struggling to get the background blurry and the product in focous. I'm a beauty blogger and its the main objective to have your images the best they can be. If you have any tips to make my photos look light and airy and out of focous in the background send them my way!

I'm here mainly to say that i'm going to new york in december and i want to get some amazing snaps, i also want to start youtube filming (i will NEED the blurred background sorted by then!) and im also wanting to become a freelance newborn photographer. I currently work in childcare and i love children i just dont love the job i do with children and i love photography so why not pair them together?! I also want to photograph children/toddlers too not just newborns (mainly newborn though!)

Baseically guys i want your input on wether you think i should get some lighting and some affordable one at that (im inthe UK) and also, should i get the Canon 50mm lens? I'm really stuck wether this would be the best one for me bloggers and youtubers rave about it but i wanted to see what you guys all think!

I'd love any help you can offer!
 
Welcome to TP!

Lots of questions there. You say a beauty blogger, what are you taking pictures of?

Not to give a lecture and to see what your understanding is do you know what causes a blurry background in pictures?
Do you have any pictures you could post up so we could see the "im struggling to get the background blurry and the product in focous"?

Don't know about the lighting as I don't know what you shoot but the 50mm is a cracking lens and so cheap it's a must have. I don't find it very good for filming with though as the crop factor increases the focal length and it doesn't have IS, making handheld filming quite zoomed and not very smooth.
 
thankyou! Its a lovely warm and welcoming place!

I think is something to do with how much light is getting in, appeture i always thought?
yes i will attach some of my blog photos and some i have been taking for fun to practice with family

I will be filming beauty videos on youtube but using my tripod! If you could give me any constructive critism on the baby photos it'd be brilliant too!View attachment 24272 View attachment 24273 View attachment 24274 View attachment 24275 View attachment 24276 View attachment 24272 View attachment 24273 View attachment 24274 View attachment 24275 View attachment 24276
 
caitlinjade95 said:
I think is something to do with how much light is getting in, appeture i always thought?
Click to expand...

Yes is does have something to do with the amount of light that hits the sensor but it also controls the "depth of field" the field being what's in focus and whats not. So the shallower DOF that you can have the more blurred background you will have.

With the lens you've got and the fragrance bottle picture you've taken you're going to struggle to get background blur as the subject and the background are almost on the same level. The maximum aperture that you can get with your lens is f3.5 at it's widest and f5.6 at it's longest hence the numbers on the end of the lens. The 50mm lens that you talk about has a max aperture of f1.8 which would give you alot shallower DOF so the end of someones nose could be in focus, yet their eyes could be out of focus.

If you want to play with aperture and see how the depth of field is effected as you change the f number line some items up (those fragrance bottles would be good) and take some test shots at a diagonal, focusing on the same bottle each time but change the aperture, you'll see that more and more come into 'focus' as the f number increases.

 
I'm not the best at giving crit of pictures. But the first one is nice and clear as to what you wanted to show and I like the way the flowers are cut around the outside of the frame. The 2nd one isn't very good, whats the green that's chopped in half and the ribbon is mixed in with the case on the right.

The baby pictures are nice enough but 1 and 3 look flat and 2, even though those lovely eyes are popping out is way over exposed/blown and the top of the head has been chopped off.
 
Your baby photos all look like you've used the pop-up flash for them? Possibly the best investment you can make for your camera is a hotshoe flashgun. Preferably on you can rotate the head on. Just by pointing the flash up at the ceiling so it bounces you'll get a massive difference on the baby photos
 
You could diffuse the light for any situation where the light feels too bright for you. Another thing you could do for now is to bounce the light from the window with a cheap reflector or white piece of paper attached to a clip board or something, this helped me to understand techniques to manipulate a given light source

Both these things will be needed to take images of children to avoid blown out highlights or unwanted shadows

Hope this helps ☺
 
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