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I had a quick play this afternoon to try to get some nice family portraits before my little one gets past the newborn look. Anyway these were taken using an SB800 fired through a white umbrella (right) with a window for fill (left) I think I lost some fill light at one stage so probably should have gone for a reflector.

This was my test shot & I was pretty happy with this so left my settings at 1/250 @ f/4 with Tamron 90mm


but some pics just didn't seem right, maybe I should have stopped down another stop or 2

maybe because I chopped arms off, I was using a white sheet as a backdrop, I might run an iron over it next time.

Maybe I should be facing people more into the light instead of back at the camera

I like this one though


comments appreciated

I went through the same process a couple of days ago doing my first shots against a background. Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like you were up closer to the subject in the first test shot than the others, judging by the head size. This closeness to the subject threw the background out of focus in the first shot (nice effect). However to get enough of the couples in the other photos you had to move further away to take the shot. This put the background sheet into the depth of field at f4. To get the background OOF you would need to bring the subjects further away from the background and/or shoot at a wider aperture. I was surprised how far from the background I needed to have my subjects even shooting at f:2.8 (round the same focal length you were using).

Thanks Simon, yes you are correct on the first. We had a bad night on Saturday & Sunday morning so lost a bit of motivation on having another go yesterday.

With a bit of luck the motivation will be back for next weekend, we have some birthdays this week so everyone will be back for another go next weekend I haven't given them the good news yet

I would start by increasing the subject to background distance. If you can, try to have that distance about the same as the camera to subject (or lights to subject) distance. This gives you good light falloff and provision for usable DoF.

I would have probably used an aperture around f/8, so that you are (hopefully) well within the sweet spot of the lens. If the image is too sharp, you can always soften in PP, but you cannot add detail if you didn't capture it in the first place.

Try to not cut off arms etc, or else fill the frame with their heads.

Maybe try facing the people (bodies) at about 30 - 45 degrees towards the camera, and turning their heads directly towards you?

I would perhaps underexpose by about 1/3 stop from where your exposure is with these, in order to increase the colour density and saturation, and while that's just my personal style/preference, it looks to me that your exposure is nudging towards the upper limits: I'm not seeing truly blown elements, but it does look to me that you're near that edge. Look at the gentleman's forehead in #4, for instance, and the girl's pants - inside thigh area - in the second image as examples of where I think you're very close to the exposure limit. What do the histograms look like?

If you don't want to iron the sheet in the background, hit it with more light, and blow it completely, exposure wise.

Also, pay a little more attention to the details in your viewfinder before you squeeze the shuuter: you have cut off the baby's feet in the third image, for instance. Stepping back just an inch or three would have cured that, while still keeping essentially the same pose and composition.

Your wb is spot on, btw; there are no casts in the shadow areas, which is always a giveaway on that aspect.

about the pose and expressions i think thats somethign you coudl work on
essentially you have to find the best angle of everyoens face
theres a lot of opinion on this but to make it simpel ytou just need the subject to turn their head aroun like an O and just find the perfect angle
but in this case its standard family portraiture so straight head down ever so slightly is prob best thing to do

but i think in prtraiture dynamics and interaction play a big part instead of the standard stright on shot, if the subjects are interacting with each other talkign laughing one arm aroudn heads touching youll get those nice naturtal shots

depends what you want but for me i always try to find some dynamic between both subjects, if the photographer keeps on talking to the subjects and some rapport is formed this sort of portraiture is all easy
but if theres no rapport your not going to get much

as for ligthitn last one is prob best, its flat and clean if ytou want to make it slightly more interesting change backfrop to black so theres litle ligth spill move light 45 degrees to side and up high got to play with this but youll get more modelling, best thing to do it just move the light around till it produces something you like

Thanks so much for your replies guys. I'm really looking forward to next weekend now. I might find a test dummy (me) & play with the distances & light angles tonight so I don't pxxxx people off on the next attempt.