If there is one thing I love about babies, it’s the bottom lip!  You can often hear me or my husband cry out, “Oh no!  It’s the bottom lip!”  You know when he gives you the bottom lip, things are not right with the world!

    So how did I get this photo of the “bottom lip?”  Well, the timing was lucky, I suppose, but it would not have been a good photo without my new (ta-da-tum!) Speedlight SP-600.  This was my birthday present from my husband, and it was quite a surprise.  While I prefer natural light photography, we have areas in our house that are dark, and I just can’t capture my children without enough light.  During the winter months, especially, this is very hard.  And it’s not possible to get an expression like this with a slow shutter speed!  This little gadget should definitely improve my Christmas morning photos this year!

    With the SP-600, I was able to turn the flash toward a wall, and the light bounced off of it, illuminating the room without flashing into my baby’s eyes.  (It goes without saying that it’s not good for a flash to go directly into an infant’s eyes.)  I’m very pleased with the results. I’m sorry I don’t have an example of the photo without a flash, but I think you can see that this lit the subject nicely, and the light doesn’t look too harsh.

    Since I just received my SP-600, I had my camera set to the “P” mode, which is automatic.  When I have time, I’ll experiment in the other modes, including manual.  I’m especially excited to learn more about doing a “slow sync” with the flash. But I’m so busy with two kids, it’s kind of nice to just switch back to automatic for a while!

These were my camera’s settings:

f/5.6

1/60

ISO 400

I used the Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens with the Speedlight SP-600

    In post-processing, I increased the exposure a bit (even with the flash, I thought it needed to be brighter) and added a vignette.  I also retouched the photo to remove a scratch on Ben’s face.  (Those darn baby fingernails are lethal!)

   

What do you think?  Please return to my blog and leave me a comment!  I love to hear your thoughts.