Family Events

[jalenaaron]

Does anybody have tips on taking pictures of family gatherings, dinners, and parties. Such as how to take photos of them having fun, eating, talking or looking at me. Can you give me shutter speeds, aperture, and ISO settings?

[ELAY]

Greetings --

As the designated photographic chronicler for my family, I thought I would share my experience with you. I am pitching this sort of at the intermediate level -- forgive me if parts of it are too basic.

With respect to settings, I think these are the guidelines you should keep in mind.

- If you aren't using flash, then probably the first thing to pay attention to is shutter speed. You probably don't want to be slower than 1/60 of a second, maybe 1/30 if you have a reliable subject, or you are going to get either photographer or subject blurring. So if you are using aperture priority mode, you will want to ensure that you choose an aperture that gets you a workable shutter speed.

- Increasing your ISO has the same effect as opening your aperture (ie it will get you a faster shutter speed), but comes at a cost -- sensor noise. You probably don't want to shoot above 400 if you can avoid it -- though if the choice is between a noisy shot and no shot, then you may want to take the shot.

- The main consideration with aperture is your depth of field -- how much is in focus in your photo. For a lot of portrait-type work, especially in the busy settings you typically get at family gatherings, having a blurred background is a positive, so using a low f/stop number (big aperture) is a plus.

- In good light you can probably adjust all three of these any way you like -- the trick comes in the tradeoffs you make in low light. In a perfect world, I would walk around shooting family gatherings in natural light with a 28-135 mm lens, opened up as wide as possible, at ISO 200. So long as shutter speed was 1/60 or above I wouldn't care what it was.

Here are a few general recommendations I can make for family gatherings --

- I just have the pop-up on my Nikon D40, and I don't like it, so I use natural light wherever I can get away with it. For me that means looking for windows and doors that are throwing light on subjects when possible, or steering people to the porch for outdoor shots.

- If I have to use flash, I try to diffuse it (which basically means spreading it around, kind of the way a lampshade spreads the light from a light bulb). There are things you can buy, but even sticking translucent tape on the flash, or dangling a white handkerchief over it will help get rid of flash glare and the nasty shadows flash causes. On many cameras you can control the flash level, and I turn mine down as far as I can away with.

- Apply the usual rules of composition for shooting faces. Get close, fill the frame, if you have two people in a shot, get them to put their heads together, try unusual angles and perspectives (shooting down on kids can be great), etc.

- If you are doing a group shot, give some thought in advance to where you are going to do it, and to how people will be organized. Try to make sure there is just one photographer at a time, so everybody will be looking in the same direction.

- If you are shooting outdoors during the day, get people out of the sun and into the shade -- direct sunlight makes for terrible shooting conditions.

- Use your continuous shooting mode, and take 4-5 shots of every pose/opportunity.

Good luck,

EL

[jalenaaron]

- Use your continuous shooting mode, and take 4-5 shots of every pose/opportunity.

How Do I Use Continuous Shooting on a Fuji finepixS7000

[ELAY]

Don't have the camera myself, so I'm not sure.

Here's a review (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilms7000/page5.asp) which mentions it. Looks like shooting mode on your camera is controlled by a button identified by a picture of several cameras behind each other.

I seem to remember reading that you got the camera from your uncle; if that means it came without a manual, go to this page (http://www.fujifilmusa.com/JSP/fuji/epartners/ServiceSupportProduct.jsp?prodcat=616757) to download a manual, quickstart guide, and some other goodies.

There are lots of general resources out there on the web for this sort of thing too.

EL

[clockdoc]

If you take lots of family group shots, you know how it seems there is always one person who has blinked, or otherwise made the shot less desirable. Take alook at and download this small (1.3MB) free application from Microsoft http://research.microsoft.com/projects/GroupShot/

In other forums, we have had fun using the applications capabilities to place a person ina photo multiple times but its original intent was to be able to easily transpose a face from one "group shot" to another that was taken at the same time and in the same place, preferably on a tripod. I have used it successfully to do a family photo where at least one of the four chiildren was making the shot unuseable because of a turned head, closed eyes or a silly expression. Here is a quick example where I used three images and made them into a single composite.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/8359753@N07/761234396/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1207/761234396_a3cdd1617e.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="john_ed_01_4X6" /></a>