the 50mm, af 360fgz flash unit with cto gel, (bounced if low cieling with homeade silver reflector (Gwyn, knows what I use)), and set your camera to manual, second curtian synch, go with a shutter speed of about 1/30 sec, iso 4 or 800 and what ever aperture you need to get the stage lights right, flash set to fill about 2/3 stop less. indoor white balance, raw files.

forgot to mention...your camera will set the color balance back to flash regardless of your manual setting, resulting in all your images looking orange.... don't fret. when processing your raw files, your flash was balanced to incandecent, same as most stage/christmas/indoor lights..... just reset the whitebalance in your software/raw converter to indoor/incandescent/3200deg and boom colors right. (I adjust in aperture by sliding the color temp twards the blue most of the way to 3200 deg, leaving my images slightly warm.

I spotted the glare, and no it won't detract, the parents will totally flip when they see it.

one tip that may or may not help, for future endeavors, I prefer to pose my subjects, or angle my camera and crop in such a way as to have babies eyes higher than dads....

Do try a little dodging around babies eye, but don't sweat it, it's not bad there, this shot is one or two split hairs short of astounding.
There are studios out there selling baby portraits every day that wish.....

Welcome
I love the debates.
Be warned...
I'm a master debater.
A very cunning linguist.
lousy sense of humour...

never mind the experimenting on color and shading, what do you think of this 8x10 crop, Nathan? I forgot to mention, there are many that would be very happy with the original, so newbies, take note, I set the bar very high when commenting on Nathan's images.....

a missing screw can be what s referred to as a manufacturing defect.
a simple mishap on an assembly line, that did not get caught by quality control.
I seem to recall a friend having his Toyota Corrolla recalled to install a bolt into an engine mount, happened to a small batch....
this may be something srs or nikon would happily remedy for you, under warrenty.

So, the only Nikon guy in the whole Pentax forum, appears to have a screw loose...
So did you try to get it exchanged?

I'm with beakynet....
the bigma is a fine lens. I wish I had one. Unfortunately critters won't pay for portraits, and wildlife stock, is too abundant already....so I'll have to go without for now.

the k20 has better low light/high iso imaging than the k10. a second body is a good idea!

It's a solid, good image. your revision looks more polished.
in a competition, I don't think it really has anything to raise it up to prize winning status.
the light on the log is a little flat, and the open area of sky, pulls the eye up to the left, where there is really nothing to look at.

Now if there was some intersting light on the logs, that would be one image, as JR suggested.
The shafts of light from the clouds, hitting the treetops, shot with a telephoto...there is a second image.
either of which would've been stronger than this one.

A child (imagine a child tossing some leaves into the air where that block of open sky is), or animal, or anything to add a sense of scale and point of interest would make this image a winner.
I'd use it as a backdrop for studio portraits of kids and pets that get cut out and pasted onto this one.

engage the subject in a conversation.
you can get any expression imaginable, if you touch the right subject.
ask kids to talk about pets, vacations, thier friends music/tv stars etc.

hard to holld that "All I see is teeth" grin, while talking, thinking etc.

I prefer to use fresh foods and work fast.
(Cardboard drink coasters can be used between meat and lettuce/tomatoes to keep the veggies from wilting when photoing burgers. slightly undercooked veggies look better than fully cooked).

for restaurant menus (i do some multimedia projects for restaurants, that involve photo, and video work, to create mini documentaries promo peices for web, and instore dvd presentations/advertising. they get to use the photos for menus as well) I set my camera up just like doing copy work. Camera mounted, pointing straight down, 2 lights at 45 deg. (only not same power, one main one fill). The chef/cook prepares the plate and places it on my set. 1 Click, the waitress takes it. Everything is clean, fresh, and ticked off the list.
Then we take some time to set up some artistic shots of a couple signature menu items, and cocktials. (these ones either get wasted for reasons listed in above posts, or the staff eat them cold, if the food wasn't altered, handled too much)

I video the restaurant, documentary style, with the owner/manager taking me on a tour of the business. They wind up with everything they need, a 3-10 minute mini advertorial for web or inhouse flatpanel displays, images for web use or prints or menu.

I do this fairly cheaply, throw my logo/ad in there also.

I usually try to get some extra sales from them, if they want me to layout a menu or buy some prints for the wall....or some web work....