Just thought I'd say Hello...

[GMaria]

I have been a member of this forum for a while, but this is my first time posting, so here is a little bit about me.

I have always loved taking photographs & video, whether it be of holidays or family get togethers. I have always felt the urge to capture and document our memories.

In 2013 I had my first baby and this is where my passion for photography really developed. I wanted to have professional looking photos of my daughter (that I couldn't afford to buy) and to have all those precious moments to look back on.

In 2014, I received a Canon 100D as a gift, this is my first DSLR. I am still trying to get to grips with things and have so much to learn, but I mostly use it in manual now, which is an improvement.

My daughter is my inspiration, and so my interest is mainly family & portrait photography.
Now a toddler, I find it challenging to get nice photo's of her when she's constantly on the move. I also find the poor lighting in our house challenging too, as I try not to use flash.

I'm growing more self critical and especially fussy about my focus. I really want to capture beautiful sharp eyes, but get frustrated when that doesn't happen, in what could have been a great photo. Quite often I find I have one eye in focus and not the other.

I have captured some lovely moments for our scrapbooks though, another hobby of mine, even if they are not perfect.

Anyway I will stop rambling now, I hope to find lots of advice & tips from this forum :-)

[Shadowman]

Hi Georgie,

Belated welcome.

It would be helpful to post a few of your attempts and include exif data, also include what lenses you have. All of your photography issues can be easily rectified, lets get you up to speed asap as toddler grow very quickly.

[davidedric]

Hi Georgie, and welcome from me, too.

A couple of thoughts. Why are you shooting on manual? With an active toddler, I suspect you are making life hard for yourself. Have a read of the thread called "Joy" in the People and Pets forum to read why some of our most experienced photographers rarely shoot manual. As for the eyes, if one is in and out of focus, the obvious response is that your dof is too shallow from too wide an aperture, though I guess your dim conditions are an issue. The rule of thumb is to get the eye nearer the camera in focus if you can't get both.

Anyway, as John said, let's see some pictures

Dave

[IzzieK]

A nice warm welcome to you too from me here in the US of A. Please post your shots and then ask for improvement and corrections if any so you can learn from many here. I love children and photographing them and I also use manual most of the time. Though I have submitted good ones, the successes are lesser than the actual count, so I am re-thinking my strategy and use either Shutter Priority or Aperture instead. I am also a learner like you so you are not alone in being a starter.

Please do join us in our conversation and comment as much as you can in any post, make friends with us...learning is not a painful journey...and you know it when you get there. I hope you will enjoy this site as much as we all do...

[GMaria]

Thank you for your warm welcome.
I guess I have just thrown myself in the deep end by going manual, to push me into finding my way around the camera.

The lenses I have are-
Canon Zoom lens- 18mm-55mm 3.5-5.6
Canon 50mm 1.8

I will take a look at the thread 'Joy' and get will post some of my images for feedback.