Our new subject!

[311Hemi]

Almost four months ago my wife and I welcomed our new little girl Sofia to our family. While she has kept us busy (she's our first) we have managed to have a lot of fun taking pics of her when we can. We don't yet have an external flash or any kind of lighting so we have basically been limited to the internal flash or tin foil I mounted over some card board for additional light. We did recently pic up the nifty fifty and really like that, and have used the 70-200 as well. Still learning the basics, but here are a few of my favorites (most not yet edited):

BTW, sorry for the size. I made them smaller on photobucket but the change does not seem to be reflecting here.

[Steve Foss]

Beautiful images, Hemi, and a lifetime of them yet to come.

Try that second one as a warm B&W or sepia tone and see how you like it.

[finnbay]

These little tykes put a lot of miles on your camera gear! Enjoy!

[fishinchicks]

She is beautiful! My baby just turned 16 today, but it seems like she was the size of your bundle just yesterday.

Enjoy the ride and keep taking beautiful photos!

[1luckydad]

Awe. How cute. Don't forget to have a good back up system for these precious pictures!

[Dave S]

that smile in pic #1 is priceless.

[Dbl]

Congratulations on the birth of your daughter! Your camera will be more than worth its weight in gold capturing some beautiful moments and memories!

[311Hemi]

Beautiful images, Hemi, and a lifetime of them yet to come.

Try that second one as a warm B&W or sepia tone and see how you like it.

Thanks guys!!

Steve...my wife actually used that photo in a sepia tone for the announcement cards that we sent out. They turned out great.

Question regarding the photo that has the fence in it. Unfortunately, I did not get the focus directly on babies face and rather the fence itself, the fence seems the sharpest to me. In addition to that the grandmother is a little out of focus, whether I planned for it or not. I know it's all up to the shooter, but would you prefer to use a smaller aperture in a shot like this to bring both subjects into focus?

Right now I have a bad habit of always wanting to use the highest aperture I can, but I am getting better about becoming a little more aware of what I am doing and why.

Also, do many of you find yourself needing to adjust the white balance for your given shooting conditions.....mainly leave it on auto?

[Steve Foss]

Hemi, I agree it looks like the fence is sharpest, with the child's face acceptably sharp, IMO. If the best focus had been on the child's face, then the current DOF would have rendered the grandmother's face acceptably sharp, IMO.

In those situations, it never hurts to stop down a bit. You were at f4.5 at 1/200 according to your exif data. Bumping to f8 would have knocked down shutter speed to about 1/80 or so, still a fast enough shutter speed with that lens and those subjects as long as your technique is good and they are not moving much. Otherwise, to get f8 and a bit more DOF, you could bump up your ISO one stop to maintain shutter speed.

I've had good luck on the auto or pre-sets with white balance.

[SpecialK]

that smile in pic #1 is priceless.

+1,000,000

[Paul]

I have to say, I have been drawn back to the second image many times, I think that image is pricless, and would have a large print of that in my living room. Congrats and may your memory cards runeth over.