This is the first time I am posting. I just want to share some
thoughts on indoor kids photo techniques. Your comments and critics
are greatly appreciated.
I started shooting more photos since I had my daughter. I found in
most situation I shoot indoors where I can spend the most time with
her. I believe this apply to most parents. Hence the topic of this
article is about indoor kids photography.
One of most difficult thing to shoot kids is focusing. Kids move and
don't pose still for the self appointed photographer. Using the old
style of lock and re-framing is sometimes too slow. Nikon's face
recognition system really shines here. In auto focus point selection
mode, as long as you put one of the focus point over the subject eye,
it usually focuses right on spot (>90%). In this first photo, my
daughter Sheryl decides to have a tug of war instead of eating
properly. I could have used center point focus and reframe, but
that'll be too late. Nikon correctly focuses on her eye.
Maybe you have noticed this picture doesn't have the correct white
balance. The photo appears too yellowish. This brings to the topic of
white-balance settings. My simple suggestion is to invest a $10
Photogels (search amazon). This is just an orange colored plastic that
you tape over your flash. Make sure you set your color balance to
Tungsten. The skin tone will be much more natural. See the second
picture of Sheryl playing with her fancy sun glasses.
Have you noticed people in professional photos are so much more life
like? Their eyes are filled with glitter and their faces are not flat!
This final rule should help you to achieve that: Always Bounce Flash.
This means NEVER directly point your flash to the subject. Get a SB600
or 430EXII, and that'll be the best $250 you spend. I usually swivel
my flash gun about 90 degrees to the left,and about 30 degrees up.
Sometime I even point my flash backward to my 8 oclock position. The
point is to think of a virtual studio light source on the wall. This
light source should be about 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock to your subject.
Just point your flash there. This achieves two goals: 1. The virtual
light source from the side evenly distribute light and make the
subject 3D like. 2. The catchlight of the eyes are much larger
therefore life like. Take a look at the third picture of my friend's 2
year old Anton. He sits next to my right in a dimmly lit restaurant. I
pointed my flash to the left. The light bounced back from the wall as
if it were from a large studio light source. Anton's eyes are full of
life.
Here are my regular settings for indoor kids shooting:
- Body: Nikon D90. I find Nikon focuses better than my Canon T2i.
- Lens: 18-200 VR. For best quality, I would use 50/1.8. But the
zooming feature of 18-200 is much more flexible for framing,
especially for kids.
- Shutter 1/125 or faster, kids moves too fast for anything slower.
- Aperture 4. I sometimes find f/2.8 or faster give too narrow depth
resulting in one subject eye out of focus.
- Auto upto 3200 with default to 800
- Flash: SB600 with CTO Gel, Always Bonce, Never Direct.
Let me know what you all think. Thanks and happy shooting.
