Quote:
Originally Posted by kimapali
I'm a novice and just received my first DSLR about a month ago (Happy Valentine's Day!). I'm in the midst of taking an online photography class to learn the basics: f-stops, speed, lighting, ISO, etc. since I've mainly used PS cameras. My main goal is to take professional-looking photographs of my 2 year-old daughter, and maybe the occasional nature shot.
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Hi kimapali, welcome to the Camel!
Rule one for shooting children (in *my* book
) is 'get to their level'
so kneel, lie down, whatever, but do not shoot 'from above'
Quote:
I've been reading up on the tutorials on portraits and looking in the lighting forum, but I'm still stumped as to how to successfully photograph children. I've shot some decent pictures of my daughter but there's always something wrong with it and I end up having to mess around with PS Elements to make it passable. If I want to shoot wide open and leave out the background I end up with blurry pictures because she's constantly moving. If I shoot with a faster shutter speed then it tends to be underexposed.
So some pointers on how to set my camera would be appreciated so I can finally take a picture of her that I'm satisfied with!
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it would help a little if we knew what DSLR camera and what lenses you have, do you own an external flashunit, use the internal flash, do not want to use flash at all... etc
Basically shooting wide open with a very thin Depth-of-Field requires that you set the active AF point by yourself, do not let the camera seek the appropriate point, and that you shoot as soon as you get the AF confirmation, no 'focus lock and recompose'
If you get underexposed shots with faster shutterspeeds, you are probably shooting with a too-fast speed for the maximum aperture, you could try shooting with higher ISO ??...
...not knowing (yet) what you shoot, but there is a great Canon website for DSLR newbies, that also 'covers the basics' like Aperture, Shutterspeed and ISO etc, see
here , and IMO it could actually be usefull for any brand user...
...*my* €0.02 worth of advise...
Kindest regards!
Max@Home