Evalyn's First Day - C&C Please :)

[Simon Woodward]

Hi,

I'm pretty new here and I'm pretty new to photography.
I just thought i would submit a few recent photos for C&C.

These ones are of my friends new baby, Evalyn.

I'm really looking for brutal criticism . What would YOU do to make these photos better?

Many Thanks

Simon

 

[..MD..]

not sure why you have not had a reply yet simon
im no expert on these shots but .. but for anyone to comment "helpfully" i think it would be a good idea to let people know what these were shot with and maybe a little exif data .. with this bit of info people will be able to give you alot more help..

hope this helps

as they look soft to me,,

md

 

[Madpup]

Simon i still leaning myself so this purly what i would have done (right or wrong)
first let me say darling baby, ok first picture i would crop very tight and take a little of the red out in PS, second i would turn the cot a little into the light and get closer,
third i would get lower and ask the lady to hold the baby closer to her face,
forth pic i would move to the left and again ask mum to hold baby closer to her face.
all of them seem soft to me but maybe thats a good thing,
was this done with a dslr?
regards,
Mark

 

[Simon Woodward]

Many thanks for letting me pick your brains.
I have taken it all on board & will return soon with improved shots.

@MonkeyDave - Sorry this these were taken with my old camera & the exif data is long gone. I will upload it with all future shots.
@MadPup - Nope, as i said above this was my old camera. I never managed to get it to focus to my liking. (it was a Finepix E500)

Thanks again for all your honesty, it helps me a lot.

Simon

 

[leoedin]

As has been said above, I think theres a mix of softness from a poor lens wide open, a touch of camera shake, and OOF images.

I find it hard to believe that the depth of field from a Finepix E500 is so small, which leads me to believe that you applied some sort of PP blur. While it can potentially look good, I think that the blur is overdone, and just leaves the images looking very soft. Because the parts in focus (ie babies face and women's eyes) aren't very sharp anyway, it leaves me wondering what to focus on. In the 3rd shot especially, the baby and the grandmother? are so far apart that you're left wondering what you where trying to pick out of the scene - the grandmother or the newborn.

I do think that the blur effect can be put to good use, but in the low light situation you where using the camera in, it degrades the images rather than complements them. The main problem is that the camera used wasn't quite up the job in that situation.

However, I like the last one - in terms of composition 2 and 4 are well composed and could potentially be turned into great images. Keep shooting!