Photographing Children

I got asked by one of my blog followers how I take photos of my children.  So I thought I would do a quick rundown of my process.  I am by no means an expert as I am not a professional photographer but here is my method.

I shoot with my Nikon D700 and usually my 50mm lens wide open or stopped down 1/3 of a stop to F2.  I have got the lend of my dads 70-200mm VR2 which is a belter of a lens.  The speed of these lenses help eliminate background distractions and also will give you the fastest shutter speed to freeze them in action.  I will shoot on A mode and bump my ISO to allow a suitable shutter speed (anything above 1/125 should be fine) or shoot manual is light is constant.  If shooting manual I will set my meter using an Expodisc and also do my WB at the same time

AF

As we all know, kids move pretty fast, so I always shoot in continuous AF mode and nearly always on single point AF, I generally try and track my children’s eye (closest one to the camera) with the AF point and click away.

Metering

I generally use spot metering which means it will meter for the kids faces as I follow them with the AF. Or else use my Expodisc to set exposure and use M mode.

ISO

I bump this up as required, anything up to 6400 on the D700 is still good.

Framing

I nearly always get down to their eye level, this usually involves me on my knees or stomach at some point..

Any questions just ask, I will do a follow up post on my workflow shortly..