Directional light

Sometimes I heard people talking about directional light. Photos can turn out good by not shinning the light source directly on to the person's face. So it is not surprise that we see photographers with external flash always trying to bounce the flash to create a directional light. Unfortunate for internal flash though, as it always shines direct to the object.

With the baby lying down on the floor, I noticed the shadow of his nose on his right face. The light was shinning from the left side through the windows. I thought the shadow might make the photo looks good, so I took a few shots, with flash off, and room light off.


I think directional light is good for potrait shots as it creates shadow and contrast. Hmm... but I don't think is a good idea to play too much on the directional light when taking group photos. Someone face will be covered with shadow...

Album: http://picasaweb.google.com/kcshashin/BabyShots25Dec2008

Smile, baby smile~

I was visiting a family on Christmas day to see the huge xmas tree they put in the house, and their new born baby. Maybe not so new (7 months old?)?

My friends wanted me to take photos of their baby. I tried a few shots to check the lighting in the house. First, I did it with the ceiling light on, but it wasn't bright enough. The photos turned out a bit under exposed. Later, I tried with the internal camera flash, the effect was just too harsh (I did not have an external flash yet...).

It was noon and there was sunlight shinning into the house through the windows. So I opened the curtain and just used the sunlight through the windows. To get a proper expose photo of the baby, I had the baby sitting down facing the light with the xmas tree behind him.


I pushed the ISO up to 800 to let more ambient light in to my camera (and also to get a higher shutter speed) , and shot the baby with f1.8. The f-stop helped to create bokeh effect on the xmas tree deco, which made the baby and his smile (also bokeh - no teeth) stood out.

I can see his saliva dripping too~

Album: http://picasaweb.google.com/kcshashin/BabyShots25Dec2008