this was my second photoshoot. i took TONS of picsand a lot of them turned out pretty nice in my opinion and they seemed to like them too so i'm pretty happy with the results. i can't wait to get to  edit them a bit in ps.

 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

I've just gotta say that I love their clothes!  You can really tell that alot of the 80's stuff is coming back into style!!

For SOOC, these are pretty darn good. I think the pose on #4 is cute, except I'd like to see it with her head not cocked over all cutesy. (I do that myself in pics and my sister makes fun of me for it, so that's probably why I notice it!)

awwww thanks for the compliment liz!  yeah they had some fun outfits i'm gonna try to post a few more later too :D.

ashley

 Yes these look great for SOOC. They could have used a smaller aperture for a better bokeh.

He has a pretty "cheesy" smile in 4 and yes the cutesy tilted head. 

I agree that they look a little "flat," i.e. there is no separation between the background elements and the subjects.  I see your aperture is 5.6, but you are shooting at 27mm.  This just makes the pictures look less like "portraits."

Also, I would crop as much of the white cement bench as possible.  It is too bright and distracts from the beautiful model   Great models!

julie, or anyone really.... could you give me an idea of some better settings that would have made the subject "pop" from the background more, i wanted more DOF but i wasn't really getting it....plus i was tired...this was a 4 hour long FREE session lol.....such a long day! also, i was having trouble on the bench, and with his white pants he wore in some photos being WAYYY too bright, even if i didn't use a flash and it wasn't very sunny outside, mostly overcast.....what do you recommend for this situation. Thanks in advance for your help!

example of the blinding whiteness lol

 If you could post your settings for your images we may be able to tell you more. Do you shoot manual?? The lower your aperture the more shallow your DOF will be and will pull your subjects away from the busy bgs

i'd have to look and see what the settings were...i'm a newbie so i don't mess with them much, i haven't had the camera very long and need to find my books for it to learn more :P i have been using autofocus because i don't think i can focus that well manually, a little too iffy for me, i think my eyes are getting kinda bad too so that doesn't help lol, what looks like it is in focus sometimes ends up not looking in focus when i see the larger image. but i will definately set the aperture lower because i know it just looks so much better. thanks!

Here is the EXIF for that last shot:

# Exposure Time (1 / Shutter Speed) = 1/10 second = 0.1 second<--------here is your problem
# Lens F-Number/F-Stop = 56/10 = F5.6
# Exposure Program = manual control (1)
# ISO Speed Ratings = 100

 Your shutterspeed should be much faster. (larger number on the right) You are letting way too much light in. The EXIF also shows that a flash did fire, so I would check on that.

Are you hand holding?? I'm surprised that the shot isn't blurry. I must be horribly shaky because I have to be really careful about my shutter speeds. The other shots look pretty good for SOOC.
 

 Auto focus is fine to use also. Just select your focus points and you should be good to go. When I first started out I thought I had to use manual focus because I worked at Sears and we did on the cameras there. After my first practice session with an active toddler I thought I was a failure and then I found out most people use auto...LOL.

oh btw i used a tripod because i tend to shake especially when i take a ton of pics my arm gets tired lol

a few more from that day

a.

b.

c.

here are a few more :P sorry about so many images

d.

e.

f.

g.

h.

I wanted to make sure that you understood from the question above if you use manual. I am pretty sure they meant on the camera not the lense. I pretty much leave my lense on auto and from what I read most do too. It can start to mess with you in a shoot if you don't. Now do you shoot in manual mode on your camera? That mode allows you to set both the aperature and shutter speed. The reason you are using a tripod during the day like that was because you had your shutter to low. If I had been in that situation I probably would have started out with my shutter around 1/125, and if it was really cloudy and the first shot too dark I would have adjusted my ISO. You shot in 100 ISO which is a good thing to always start out trying but you don't won't to lower your speed too low or they will be blurry do to camera shake and therefore you have to use a tripod during the day. Urrr I don't know if I helped out any, it IS hard  to grasp this stuff. I did the same thing when I first started but now I hardly use a tripod unless I am in very low light situations and for some reason don't want to bounce the flash. Also just remember this, low f-stop example:F2.8 is going to have your main subject in focus and the background blurry. SO with that said (this helped me "get it") if your shooting a large group of people you are going to take that f-stop to like F8-F11 so the people on the edges aren't blurry. Does that help? I hope so. OVER ALL GREAT JOB THOUGH!   

ohhh okay i did misunderstand the question. i was using auto on the lens and had the camera set to A-DEP which if i remember correctly the book said meant auto depth of field but i could be wrong. i got this camera (canon digital rebel XTi) in February and haven't spent very much time using it and now i have misplaced my books. I'm sure i can go online and find the user manual in PDF format but just haven't put out the effort yet lol. So to make a long story short i haven't really messed with changing the settings and all although i tinkered with it yesterday after reading your reply. i didn't figure out how to change the ISO setting but i was able to change the aperture which is the F # right? The lowest it went was 5.6...does this sound right? anyway i wanted to thank you so much for your in depth reply sarah, i agree it is a little overwhelming and makes you almost second guess yourself for not knowing all bells and whistles right off the bat although i know the knowledge comes with time and practice. well i hope you all have a great day!