Taking photos of children?

[Crystal]

Tomorrow I am taking my 9month old and my friends 2 year old twins to the park (weather permitting) for some nice pictures.

Any tips to get some nice shots? I have a "children" setting on my camera that tracks faces... Should I use this or go manual?

[William]

If your confident of shooting Manual , Do it , Just make sure you get a high shutter speed to freeze the action , Remember to check your in camera histogram after the first shot

[mercho]

Bring Props, lots of props! Toys etc... Good luck!

[mudman]

take a roll of clear sticky tape. child portraits look good with their hands close together. wrap a bit of tape around a finger and talk to the child while shooting. they will play with the tape, which keeps their hands together, and you can get some good facial expressions too

[Crystal]

Thanks for the ideas. I had never heard of the sticky tape before... That's very clever! As for the histogram... I better go read my manual cause I still don't know where to find it!

[kiwi]

Please, dont shoot manual if you're a bit new

try aperture priority +1EV (can you do that) ?

make sure you keep your shutter speed over 1/200s

look for nice clean and dark backgrounds and get down to their level.

[Crystal]

Aperture priority - no worries... + 1EV- no idea what that even means! (oh no I really am a noob!)

[kiwi]

Oh, and dont use the auto face tracking crapola, choose focus and focus on the eyes.

[kiwi]

re EV comp, well, read the manual

.....or...just using program auto until you do

[Dwarak]

Thanks for the advice kiwi even I wanted to take pictures of my 5 month old will post soon

[yummymummy]

Darren beat me to it down to their level is a must, or you just end up taking snap shottish photos. ( I know, probably not even a word lmao) try and avoid the usual "cheese" to make them smile.. try using jokes or say or do something funny, you'll get a more natural smile.

[kiwi]

Best advice is just let them be kids and take candids that are constructed

[Crystal]

Thanks everyone.... Hopefully I will come up with something worth sharing

[kiwi]

Whatever the result you should share

[Mark L]

Aperture priority - no worries... + 1EV- no idea what that even means! (oh no I really am a noob!)

Aperture priority is good. Take your photos in RAW and you can adjust exposure a little later.
If you're having fun, then that rubs off on youngens (new word). So have fun.

[BabySwine]

the best way to focus on them is to centre focus on the eyes, and then lock the focus, (if you have that on your camera, it is by half pressing down the shutter button) and then realign your photo.

[tcdev]

take a roll of clear sticky tape. child portraits look good with their hands close together. wrap a bit of tape around ...

You had me a bit worried where this was going!

[Mark L]

How did it go Crystal?

[Crystal]

Well... It rained... So not at all! I'm hoping for a nice sunny day this week.

[Tarryn]

ive found that kids especially round the three to five years old bracket get scared of you once you put the big black camera in front of your face. ive had a few sessions like this, they wont look up cos they know you are following them with the black thing hehe so definately get someone else to come along to do funny things while you take photos, its distracts them. and theres always BRIBERY lol good luck on second time around!