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All photographs copyright Harry Cutting. All rights reserved.
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Photo Details and Comments - X73-19 - Newborn baby in delivery room |
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Technical data: Photo taken with hand held Nikon SLR film camera & Nikkor 28mm f2.8 lens, in-camera TTL multi-pattern exposure metering, manual camera exposure mode with on-camera flash bounced from ceiling, plus 1 stop flash compensation. Approximate exposure 1/60 second at f8 - Kodak T-Max 400 black and white film rated normally at EI 400, processed normally. No lens filters were used. Film was scanned using a Nikon Coolscan series film scanner. Photo file was routinely optimized with Photoshop on a Mac. |
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Comments: This photo was taken just seconds after birth; the delivery nurse was presenting the baby boy to the mother who was seeing him for the first time. He's beautiful, the mother exclaimed. The labor and delivery had been very rapid, there had only been time for a few dozen photos including this keeper. The beauty of ceiling bounced flash is that it's an easy set-up; flip up the on-camera mounted flash about 90 degrees and click away (for horizontal shots, that is; flip and rotate it 90 degrees for verticals, of course). The flash will bathe the entire scene in soft, almost non-directional light. If the ceiling is white, and the surroundings are neutral to white, then the color shifting will be minimal and easily corrected, post-production, with Photoshop or similar software, or possibly in-camera if using a DSLR and tweaking the White Balance after testing the shot. For most bounce flash situation use an "auto" camera exposure setting such as S, A or P (for DSLR's) and a "multi-pattern" camera meter setting (not spot) so the camera and flash can evaluate a wide set of exposure parameters. Set your flash to the usual auto TTL setting. Usually this will get the job done well enough. Often though, it's wise to match your flash exposure to the background so the picture will look natural - that is, your subject will be exposed about as much as the background. Sometimes this is not practical, such as if the background exposure is so low that trying to match it would result in too slow a shutter speed, or too large an aperture setting. But if it's doable then do this: use M (manual) camera exposure mode and a wide area metering mode, meter the background generally, set the camera shutter and aperture to that value, then set the flash to its usual TTL setting and fire away. See an example here. My experience is that often scenes are underexposed with bounce flash so I routinely add one stop of flash compensation. If the ceiling height is excessive then even more comp may be needed. Experimenting with bounce flash in different settings is a must - different camera / flash combinations give varying results, as do different ceiling heights and room dimensions. HC See also: photos of families | more baby photos | more photos with comments | all photos | purchase as stock photo |
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