I'm not sure I understand what you mean. But thanks for taking a look!

---Jude

I would like to know what you think of this image.
Feel free to ask any questions about how this was shot.

Canon 7D with 70-200mm L Mark II
Off camera flash with medium shoot through umbrella

http://judevickery.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20110616-IMG_2992.jpg

You are quite welcome! I agree, if it's something you enjoy then take it as far as you wish. You'll have a great time in the process. :thumbup:

---Jude

Thanks for your insight!

---Jude

Dennis,
That's a great alternative considering the yellow on the head. looking a little closer and using just the examples that you posted, consider the following;

The photo of the Kinglet that you posted shows a shorter forehead and less round to the top of the head than the bird in jeep daddy's photo, or the photo of the yellow rump that you posted.

The bird in jeep daddy's photo is showing yellow clearly under the chin, and on the breast next to the wings, which is absent on the Kinglet.

The kinglet also has very distinct black lines bordering the yellow spot on the head where either of the other birds posted are lacking this feature.

There is no eyering on the kinglet, where both of the other birds show a distinct broken white eyering.

There is faint streaking on the breast of the bird in question, and no streaking on the breast of the kinglet.

Keep in mind the warbler in jeep daddy's photos is in fall plumage, which becomes very faint while the Yellow Rumped Warbler in your post is in spring plumage which is as bright as they get. You have also provided great examples of (Myrtle) race of Yellow Rumped Warbler which has the white throat and is common through out the united states while the (Audubon's) race of the Yellow Rumped Warbler is only found in the western part of the united states and has a yellow throat instead of white.

Nice photos by the way, did you take these?

---Jude

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I might have to disagree with the ridged "never" comment. First and foremost the subject needs to look natural (unless you want a forced look), and I've found that the more I try to force a pose that is unnatural to the person the worse the results are. While in general I agree with concept of looking at the sides of hands versus the flat side, to try to make every single photo look that way would have some very limited, or at least odd looking poses I would think.

Thanks again!

---Jude

Thanks!
I had originally started using flashes for this set, but as the sun started to go down the light became so nice that we just turned the flashes off for awhile.

--Jude

Yes it could be easy to take the moss off her foot. My comment had more to do with fixing those things during the composing of the photo. Thanks for the thought though!:thumbup:

---Jude

Sherrie,
I think you did the right thing using the camera in auto. If you had tried to use the camera in manual while at the same time not understanding how to use the built in light meter, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO then you would have spent more time fighting the camera than being creative and getting good response from the kids. And your photos would have been a mess. Ask anyone just starting with Manual Mode....

If the mother was happy (you did get her out of a jam), and the grandparents are happy (they obviously want to look at them more), then you did your job. That's why I would encourage you to not fret too much about these, but take what you've learned and move on to the next shoot. :)

On the Canon consumer cameras any of the creative zones (portrait, landscape, night, action) are still fully automatic. By using any of those modes you're simply letting the camera know your intentions for shooting so that it can load the programming for that kind of photography. The camera is still in full control of shutter speed, aperture, its just tweaked towards a specific style.

Av (aperture priority) or Tv (shutter priority) some would suggest are a step towards manual, because each of the modes gives you control over one or more of the functions of the camera. Av gives you control over aperture. So for instance if you wanted to pull your nephew away from the wall and get the background to blur, you could use Av and set it to the largest aperture (some would say smallest number) and let the camera automatically select the correct shutter speed for you. The thing that you have to remember about shooting in either Av or Tv is that the camera is still "thinking" about the exposure for you. It will use the internal light meter and pick settings that it thinks will give you the best results. Just like it did with the photos you posted. The results it thinks you should have may not be what your looking for however. Hence the recommendation to start shooting in Manual.

It's great that you had fun, and you show a lot of promise with your creativity. Just get you equipment under control so that it's not doing any thinking for you and you'll have an even better time! I think it's great that a local photographer is willing to let you tag along! You can learn so much more from someone who knows what they're doing in person!

---Jude

Thanks wright1!

I had a great time going through the southwest this past summer. I brought home lots great content!

---Jude

It's actually hard to answer your question in a post here on the forum, but I'll try to add a little. Your color doesn't really look that far off to me except for the last one (and I'll get to that in a second), but I believe it's more about light control that will give you the results that you're after. Unfortunately that also means that there is probably little that you can do in Photoshop to take these photos to the place you'll be happy with them.
If it were me I would save the hours (if not days) of editing and go for a re-shoot if that's possible. If not, then be happy with how much you learned from this photoshoot and let those who are already happy with what you've done be happy with them. If you do this sort of things often you'll be making leaps and bounds over the next few months.

As has already been mentioned high afternoon sun is not the ideal time for sunlight portraits. If this is the only time that you can shoot, then move your subject to the shade (like in your third photo) or at least place your subject with the sun behind the subject and ADD light to the subject from the front via flash or reflector. The point here is to eliminate the very dark shadows going from one side of the face to the other.

This also requires some basic knowledge of the function of the camera and how to manipulate aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and lens length to get the results that you desire. Judging from the last photo, and the fact that the flash went off on that photo and not the others, I'm guessing you had the camera in automatic for most of the shoot. Moving to manual is really the only way to have consistent results time after time once you know how to control the light your using.

Here is an example of a portrait taken late morning, at a time when the sun was very harsh and would have cast nasty shadows across the face. I placed my daughter with the sun behind her, and used the umbrella to cast a shadow over her whole upper body, and used flash to give the proper lighting to her face. http://judevickery.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Elizabeth-2010.jpg

I hope this helps!
Let me know if you have any additional questions!

---Jude

Monument Valley

1.
http://judevickery.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Vacation-2011-5053.jpg
2.
http://judevickery.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Vacation-2011-5074.jpg
3.
http://judevickery.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Vacation-2011-5165.jpg

Thanks for the reply blueeyes!
Your points are well taken. If I have to explain the objects in a photo then it really has no purpose. I actually remember thinking about the fact that the hat (white object) did not look like a hat when I was framing the last photo during the shoot. Had I stopped to remove the hat however the moment in her face (and light) would have been lost. Sometimes you just have to live with it. :) Thanks again!

---Jude

Thanks alaskagirl!

Great depth, color and lighting here!:thumbup:

---Jude