Still playing around with lighting, would love some input. I love taking outdoor portraits
but here in michigan we are inbetween fall and winter so its prety ugly outside, not to mention cold as heck,so I bribe my daughters to pose so I can work on lighting.I tried different iso's and shutter speeds but I was playing around with indoor ambiant w/one flash

canon 40d
28 to 135 lens
iso 100
65mm
5.0
1/2 sec
speedlight 430ex silver umbrella

Shutter speed is to slow. Should have set the f/stop at 3.5 and maybe increase the iso.

Seems like a good start. Nice catch-light in the eyes. I think I'm seeing mixed color temperatures on the lighting, you may need to gel your flash with a CTO gel or use daylight from the windows as your ambient, or the quick fix, switch to B&W

Alan

First, cute kid (and lucky parents).

I agree that the very slow shutter speed is unexpected since you were using flash. I don't recommend such a slow exposure when photographing children. IF you get in the habit of such slow exposures, you will wind up having difficulties later if you are not careful with your camera settings.

IF the room is very dark with only dim "room lighting" then try using the "night" setting on the dial to establish what the camera thinks is necessary for a "flash with ambient for background" look. It is designed to light a figure when outdoors at night and the ambient light is "dark." Just for fun.

Now...the image itself looks pretty good.

Unusual expression (not a big smile).

The color appears to be "inside incandescent" look. That is not inappropriate if you are shooting inside. Light inside a house seldom looks like "noon daylight 5000K" at any time (day or night).

I hope these comments help and encourage you.

thanks guys, I am still messing with the manual settings up and down to view how they affect the subject then looking for input. I will try again maybe tonight to bump iso and shutter,
thanks steady, we are lucky to have beautifull girls who are willing to pose when I need them.

jim

Try f4 and about 50mm and ISO 200 to start. IF you use the 28-135mm it will probably be at f5.6 if you shoot "long end" and so you might want to open it up and widen the FOV some and get a more open aperture.