Tack sharp two year old?

[lunathea]

Hey all! I'm taking my best friend and her adorable two year old son out tomorrow for a little shooting. She's had a bit of crap come her way recently and wants photos of him for x-mas but the budget is a bit tight to get someone with experience so she asked me. I have two fears:

1) He will be moving so much that I won't be able to get his eyes tack sharp (I'll be using my 50mm 1.8 which I find to be sharpest around 2.8).

2) His hair is white blonde, I'm kind of worried on that exposure wise as it's something I haven't deal with before.

These will be all outdoors. I kind of wanted to include a balloon in one and pp Hobbs (as in Calvin and Hobbs) in to the pic. He looks just like Calvin and she loves that cartoon, but I don't know if that's beyond my photoshop skills or not.

I'm looking for any advice you all can give me, thanks!

~Ali

[Biomech]

You shouldn't have too much of a problem, I was shooting indoors today at 2.8 and getting 1/200 from the bedroom lights, so outdoors shouldn't be too bad. You can always push the ISO up if you're not getting a fast enough shutter speed. So maybe 1/400 @ 2.8 ISO 800 or something - depending on conditions.

As for the hair, I'd say make sure you shoot RAW, you can pretty much save anything with RAW

[lunathea]

I guess it's my fear of getting the focus on his eyes fast enough before he flinches away that I'm freakin over. Know what I mean?

[Biomech]

You could try setting the focus to Continuous. Personally I'm awful at getting the focus spot on :P

[graciousness]

Don't be scared. I shoot kids all the time and yeah, they're wiggly little things. My 3 year old doesn't stop moving even if she's sleeping

I take it if it's for christmas, they want a little bit more of a formal shot?

You'll need something with you that will get his attention as you take your shots. Tiny bells that you can ring with your fingers as you snap, finger pupppets, etc. You only need a second at a time to focus and take his photos so make sure that you have plenty of time for the shoot. Also, a sit down doesn't necessarily always have to be "look at my camera" shots. Sometimes the best ones are moments when they are relaxed and doing something else other than posing for the camera.

Have plenty of space in your memory card. You'll be snapping your life away.

Seriously, don't be scared. You can only do what you can do best on the day. Just be prepared with your camera and snap all opportunities, even just moments when you maybe sitting down and having tea or coffee and relaxing. You can tell mum to put baby on the lap for a sec and see what happens. Create the opportunities whenever possible even if it's not what you had envisioned the shots to be.

Show him the photos on the LCD after a few shots and most of the time, kids get amused and will want to pose. Doesnt always work all the time, but it's always worth a shot.

I think this is all a could think of....

Anyhoo, good luck!! Don't forget to have fun. It's also important that you relax

[Doug Sundseth]

At 5', you'll have about 4" critical DoF, at 10' you'll have about 16". Kids move quick, but that should cover most sorts of movement between focus and shot. As graciousness mentioned, wait for the pause and press the shutter release. You might consider continuous-mode shooting, but I would still try to hit the pauses and limit the number of shots in a burst.

At 2.8, assuming ISO 100 and sunny, you should expect something like 1/3200 sec. (1/800 if it's quite cloudy), so motion blur shouldn't be a problem either.

I'd recommend that you have some sort of fill light available if it's sunny, as dynamic range will probably be a bigger problem than blur. Failing all else, even on-camera flash will help quite a bit to reduce the range.

Finally, I'd recommend not posting a photo with a composited-in Hobbes online, as that use would almost certainly be a copyright violation. If nobody sees it, nobody will care.

[NathanFranke]

Originally Posted by Doug Sundseth

Finally, I'd recommend not posting a photo with a composited-in Hobbes online, as that use would almost certainly be a copyright violation. If nobody sees it, nobody will care.

Everything with Calvin and Hobbes on it is a copyright violation, except the newspapers and the compilation books. Bill Watterson hasn't gone after any of the Calvin-peeing-on-stuff sticker people, so I'm pretty sure he wouldn't lose sleep over one photographer.

So, Violating Copyright Is Very Bad And You Should Never, Ever, Ever Do It. But who am I to say who pasted Hobbes into that image. Could have been you, could have been the one-armed man, could have been that guy down the street. I won't report you.

[lunathea]

Tyvm for the all the advice! Omg Grace you should be motivational speaker. I sincerely feel like I should print what you wrote and hang it up some where as it can relate to anything in life! I'm going to have such a hard time staying 4' away Doug lol, I always move closer and I have a terrible sense of measurement it. Not accustom to getting the shot and cropping in but I will work on it especially with that sort of focus range! Fingers crossed I get at least three usable shots!

Oh and it's not too formal, we're going to a pumpkin patch then a park with some pretty purple and gold tones going on right now

Thx for the copyright advice too guys!

Good luck. As a parent of 1 year old twins, it's really tough to get shots in focus with a prime lens.

I have much better results, and more fun photos, when I shoot very wide...think 10-18mm on a crop sensor. Focus is much easier, and you can pull in a lot of the background (which is nice if you have fun props).

[Biomech]

You might be able to get around the copyright issue by claiming that it is a work of "parody"