Vault Loc: Gig Harbor, WA and Yuma, AZ

I am trying to improve my lighting choices and techniques. Since I mostly do landscapes this is very new to me.
Nikon D7100
Nikon 18-200 DX VR at 170 mm
ISO 100 f/5.3
SB600 flash bounced from left with defuse controlled by command setting on camera.
No post work since I don't know anything about it or what to use.
Should I have gone with a smaller aperture to make depth of field deeper?
Thank you.

(Download)

timcc Loc: Virginia

I like your lighting effect, with the shadows and well-lit faces. My suggestions would be to lighten the shot overall slightly in post and crop out the partial figure on the left. If you re-shoot the scene, I would shift the composition to the right and down a bit, so the lamb and figure on the right are fully included and you get rid of the partial figure on the left. The focus seems to be too narrowly on the baby's head, with everything else soft, so I would also decrease your aperture to 7.1 or 8 to increase DOF. A tiny bit of sharpening or clarity in post might also help.

Vault Loc: Gig Harbor, WA and Yuma, AZ

Thank you. Since my lovely bride will not take this down until Jan. I'll be able to improve. The shadowing was a mistake with the first shot so continude to use it. I have not tried any post stuff. Old guy and new trick thing I guess.

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Vault, All I did was to lighten and sharpen your image. Do you like it any better?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Your EXIF data says f/13 for this image attachment rather than f/5.6. Your histogram is clustered on the left of middle, graphically representing a too dark / under-exposed image.

Assuming you have plenty of opportunity to revisit this subject, consider a few changes:

a) Decide if you want all the figures in focus or not. The shepherd above the manger is the focus of this image, by position, but is not in focus. I'd focus specifically on his face or the lamb he's holding.

b) Leverage the VR of the lens and base your subsequent exposure changes around a shutter at 1/100 sec.

c) Expose to the right so your exposure adjustments place the meter in the view finder around +1 to the right of the zero-mark. If you want to keep ISO-100 and find an aperture that gets everyone in focus (or the background figures more out of focus), you'll use adjustments to the shutterspeed to brighten / darken the image. Or, use flash compensation to output more (or less) light from the flash.

d) Look at the edges of your frame and adjust / remove figures that only partially appear, like whatever is entering from our left-side of this frame.

Some of the edited versions show what you should be doing in the camera. I'm of the school that all digital images benefit from some post processing work. But, the best final results always start with the best initial results from the camera.

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

Please forgive my critique if it offends you.
On first glance, I noticed the shadow of the palms. This will be a key point. This is cropped too much on the left and somewhat on the right. With an f/stop of 5.3 and an ISO of 100 you aren’t giving the scene much justice. You need to increase the ambient light capture. Try slowing down your shutter speed (?). Increase your ISO perhaps to 400. As for your aperture open it up to 4.5

The gray background with the shadow of a palm tree is unique. Perhaps you should increase the definition by moving the light further away. You may want to add another palm tree on the right side with the same or similar lighting scheme. In all, This is a lovely presentation.

As for post processing, I really haven’t learned much. Right now I do my best to set the shot before I press the shutter.

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

One day when you get a chance, I hope you can teach me and the other newbies how to obtain the EXIF data and the shutter count.

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

As far as the EXIF data goes: I noemally use a plug-in for my web browser (Firefox + Exif viewer). Sometimes I may have to download the image and have a look at it in Lightroom.

timcc Loc: Virginia

Current Windows and Apple computers all have very basic and easy-to-use photo editing programs built-in -- for free. The Windows version allows cropping, clarity, spot removal, and a number of light and color adjustments. It is very simple to use, and you can save your changes as copies to avoid permanently changing the original.

I think you'll find it's actually fun to tinker with images in post, whether you shoot RAW or JPEG, and often just a few adjustments can dramatically improve a shot.

Vault Loc: Gig Harbor, WA and Yuma, AZ

Very nice.

Vault Loc: Gig Harbor, WA and Yuma, AZ

I want to thank everyone for the replies and knowledge. All make sense and I will post later my re attempt. This is alot of fun. What a great web sight.

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

Don’t put yourself down. There are a few occasional hobbyists like myself who never used any software to manipulate a photograph. Simple reason: We never knew what computers were. The only way thing we know was transporters, communicators and phasers (from Star Trek)

Actually I’m not old, I’m vintage!

cameranut Loc: North Carolina

This is a quick, less than 2 minutes post processing using Windows Photo Gallery which comes with early versions of Widows. I had to download it to my Windows 7 pro. It is free and very easy to use.

(Download)

JustJill Loc: Iowa

I can't wait to see your reattempt. I posted a still life too, and received great advice on how to improve it. I need to find time to retry mine too. Best of luck to you.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

I think that CHG_CANON has offered great advice, I would only make the further suggestion of paying attention to the background, move the palm, the shadow it casts over your image is distracting, and the other is that if you were to move the subject of the image away from the wall the wall would not be in as clear of focus hopefully giving a smoother background. Post can always help, there is a lot to learn about post processing but it is an important part of photography.