Digital Photography Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 17 Capture Kids Without Going Crazy

Sure, kids are cute in real life. But when it
comes to capturing them with your digital point-and-shoot camera,
they can be as elusive as leprechauns.

Digital point and
shoots are great general-use
cameras. But most of them are plagued by a phenomenon called
shutter lag: the response time from the moment you push
the shutter button to when the picture is actually captured is too
long, sometimes as long as a second. In kid photography, a second
might as well be a week.

2.3.1 Choosing a DSLR Camera

This next section of this hack provides ways to increase your odds of
success with point and shoots. But first, if you want to cut right
over to the fast lane, consider getting a digital SLR (DSLR), which
has a much faster response time and performs better overall.
DSLRs
look and behave just like your favorite 35mm single lens reflex (SLR)
cameras of years past, but they have a sophisticated image sensor
instead of film.

Not long ago, this wouldn't be practical advice for
parents, because DSLRs were just too darned expensive. But you no
longer have to choose between a camera and a college fund. Both Canon
and Nikon have introduced quality DSLRs for under US$1,000, and more
are sure to be on the way. The Canon Digital Rebel and the
Nikon D70 are two
examples of DSLRs that will help you keep up with your kids without
maxing out your credit card.

DSLRs have minimal shutter lag times, allow for generous
sequential shooting, accept a variety
of lenses, and enable you to use external flash. In other words, they
are perfect for action, er, kid photography.

2.3.2 Hacking the Point-and-Shoot Camera

Now that you know what your next camera should be, how do you get the
most out of the one in your hand? OK, here are some tips to increase
your odds of success.

First, get everyone outdoors, where there's more
light, better backgrounds, and lots of things for kids to do. Then,
make these three adjustments on your camera:

Set for the highest resolution your camera allows.

This enables you to later crop out part of the
picture, yet still have enough pixel information to make a good-sized
print. It's like adding a powerful telephoto lens to
your little point and shoot.

Find Infinity Focus mode and activate it.

Essentially, this disables the autofocus (which is slow as mud on
most consumer digicams) and lets you capture perfectly focused images
from about eight feet to infinity. By doing so,
you've just shortened the length of time from when
you push the shutter button to when the image is recorded. This also
allows you to hang back a few feet, so you're not
spending all your energy chasing kids around instead of photographing
them.

Enable Continuous Shooting mode.

Instead of taking a bunch of single shots and missing the action,
Continuous Shooting mode lets you hold down the shutter button and
fire a series of frames. The knack to this is starting the sequence
right before the decisive moment and shooting through it. Then,
review your pictures on the LCD screen, remove the obvious misses,
and keep the winners.

Here are a few other things to keep in mind. Arrange your shoots for
the time of day that your children feel the best. They will cooperate
more and act less fussy. Remember to get down low, at their level,
for the most intimate photographs. If you can engage them in an
activity, such as playing with their favorite toy, you will get more
natural expressions and fewer posed-looking shots.
Don't be afraid to bribe them with treats either,
such as a slice of apple, to get them to slow down just a bit (see
Figure 2-3).

Figure 2-3. Bribe a child to slow down with an apple slice (photo by Jan Blanchard)

Once you're back on the computer, select a few of
your favorite images to refine. Use the cropping tool to select the
most interesting aspects of the image and discard the rest. I
recommend you copy the image (using the Save As command) before
resizing it, just so you have the original handy if you want to crop
it another way later on.

Now, make your print or send it as an attachment to show others how
utterly beautiful, brilliant, and charming your kids are.