Here’s our first FAQ Friday, formerly known as “Ask Us Anything”. For those of you new to our blog, we accept questions via our Facebook wall and select the 2 most popular questions to answer for you here! Then Mariah and Heidi answer the questions together. Let’s get started!
Here are our top two questions, each getting 7 likes:
“When I’m shooting in natural light indoors, I bump up my ISO and try to shoot wide open so that I can have a fairly {high} shutter and nice DOF. But almost always the babies arms are flapping and I can’t manage a “frozen” shot! How do you handle moving 6-9 month old babies especially?? What am I doing wrong?” ~Sue
Mariah’s answer: Hi, Sue! I’ll tell you what we do to give you an idea of what works for us. We usually shoot babies at around f2.0, then f2.5-2.8 for moving toddlers. The bright light in the studio allows us to use higher apertures to get more of the subject in-focus, while still ‘freezing’ them. We’re also lucky to have cameras that handle noise well, and we’re comfortable shooting sessions at 1600 without grain. If we need to bump the ISO past 1600, we use our cameras’ high ISO sensitivity setting and noise reduction in post-processing. We also shoot in RAW, so that if we need to, we can capture images that might be slightly darker in-camera, but can be brightened in ACR. If all else fails, try giving babies something to hold, and toddlers an activity to do that keeps them in one spot! 🙂
“Your in-studio flower box is a brilliant idea! How do you set it up? grow bulbs? Put potted plants in?” ~Jennifer
Heidi’s answer: Hi Jennifer! Thanks so much. For years we had a custom built box on wheels that we would put potted plants into and switch out every few weeks. We would roll it in and out of the studio for sunshine and fresh air. This year the box was stolen 🙁 so now we just make a big ol’ mess! The last time we used a garden setup, we emptied out bags of dirt and planted the flowers right into the pile of dirt. Sounds crazy, I know. Sometimes we are!
And a couple extras, since they each got 6 ‘likes’ and they’re quick ones:
“How long does it take you to edit one picture and do you always use actions?” ~Amanda
Mariah’s answer: It depends on the image, but I’d say about 5 minutes on average. We process the image in RAW, then bring it into Photoshop where we run a combination of our own actions (that we’ve found work best with our studio light) and others’ action sets. We’ll paint or clone anything that needs it, then skin soften and selectively sharpen to give the image a ‘polished’ look.
“What camera do you use? What’s your favorite genre to photograph?” ~Lindsey
Heidi’s answer: We use the Nikon D4 and D3s in studio and have a D700 backup. My favorite genre is definitely BABIES! I especially love 6-9 months old. I’m borderline obsessed!
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