Family
Heartfelt updates about family milestones and everyday moments. From taking Mazie to college and annual visits to the Renaissance Festival to Swedish‑pancake breakfasts and VR outings with the kids, this category celebrates togetherness.
- The lighting setup I had was barely adequate. I had to take every picture up 2 stops in Lightroom after importing. The room I was shooting in had plenty of ambient light, and I still was barely up to par.
- Focus is beyond critical. I was really frustrated that many of the pictures I had didn’t have crystal clear focus. I was focusing manually of course, but right away I noticed that if the subjects eyes aren’t absolutely locked on focus the picture really suffers. They looked fine, and completely in focus, in the viewfinder. With older kids that will sit still I learned the power of the live preview mode on my camera to get perfect focus. This made a huge difference.
- You need a big room. I was shooting with about 7-10 feet from the subject. That wasn’t really enough room to get the framing I wanted.
- Lack of strong light forced me to keep my f-stop really low, and as a result my depth of field really small. This amplified the focus problem. Additionally, I had to keep my shutter speed pretty slow which made it hard to shoot the really little kids.
- I’m not sure why, but I shot the entire time with my Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L. It is by far the best glass I have, but at 70mm on the short end it’s still long. I should have tried a couple of other lenses, and will next time.
Mazie decided to do a little project with all of the dog toys the other day. Pretty cool. (Don’t obsess about the door frame. This is a panorama off the iPhone that wasn’t intended to be a panorama.)
“Well, I’m full from food, but I’m not full from dessert.” - Mazie
Well, I’m full from food, but I’m not full from dessert. — Mazie
Mazie and I went out for dinner tonight at Lion’s Tap! Daddy’s little princess went in her dress-up clothes. She was adorable and brought smiles to everyone she saw.
I don’t want Daddy in our family anymore! — Mazie (mad!)
Mazie had her first ever scuffle at pre-school. Seems her and her friend disagreed and a scratch on the cheek resulted.
Mazie Mastering her Skuut
It was the first weekend in April, but that didn’t get it warm. In fact we had snow overnight this weekend and woke up to at least an inch of wet snow in the morning. That didn’t stop us from heading outside and for Mazie to spend some more time mastering her Skuut. She is very excited to “get a bicycle and not even need stabilizers”.
“I wanna watch a TV show!” — Mazie
Conversation with Mazie…
First Try at Studio Photography
Yesterday I took my first attempt at doing studio photography. I’ve done a variety of different shooting, but I hadn’t yet attempted to set up lighting and do studio style portrait work. I’ve accumulated the bare essentials to do this over the last few months. I’ve got a Manfrotto Background Support system, one continuous light and the wireless system for my two Canon flashes. I learned quickly that is barely enough lighting to shoot with.
I got everything set up and did photos of Mazie and her cousin Nora, followed by shots of our neighbors three kids. Free photos of your kids is a pretty easy way to practice studio portrait shooting. 🙂
Lessons Learned
I did a little bit of searching and found a few studios that you can rent for a half-day. I think I might try that to see how it goes with a real lighting setup.