Child Photography Tips | Joy of Childhood

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Joy of Childhood | Petronas Twin Tower KLCC

Child photography will always be a challenge especially if it involved our very own child, they will never stand still, always on the move, full of energy. In this post I’m going to talk about how we can freeze those great moment. The most important thing that need to keep in mind is this, always make sure that we use a very fast shutter speed when photographing a children especially if they are on the move.

For the picture above I shutter speed 1/160, aperture f8 and using ISO 100. It is not fast enough but nevertheless good enough to freeze the action of my son jumping in front of Malaysia most famous landmark Petronas Twin Tower. You can see from the picture on the very top where my son leg were quite blurry but it’s quite ok fro me, it gives the picture a sense of motion into it. I can use much faster shutter speed if I bump up the ISO and open up the Aperture some more but the reason why I choose to use f8 and ISO 100 is that I want the background to be sharp as well.

This is not a picture about my son only, I want to have a sense of place here, that’s why the background is important too. If I want to focus on my son alone, I will take him to the local park, use telephoto lens like 70-200mm and shoot at wide open aperture like f2.8 and use fast shutter speed like 1/500 and above. The end result will be great, I can imagine the background to be beautifully blurred but in this case I need the background to be recognizable.

Another tips is when taking action picture of a child like a jumping shit like this, it is highly recommended to shoot in “burst mode”. I mean choose a burst mode on your camera where you can shoot continuously at three frames per second or above depending on your camera capability, some camera can shoot up to ten frames per second. Do not shoot when the child already up in the air but press the shutter button the moment the child wanted to jump and press still the shutter button until the child safely landed on the ground and then only released the shutter button.

This is not my best shot but but nevertheless I mange to freeze my son in front of Petronas Twin Tower while my son still a small boy. Sometimes we visit this place frequently, we tend to take  for granted about this place. Sometimes I don’t bother taking out my camera and take my son picture with that famous building but thinking back, I need to document my son being here, enjoy being happy and happy being here. That is the most important thing to me. Sometimes a simple picture like this will be a great treasure in the years to come. Hopefully with this simple tips, we will never miss a moment.

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