Giggly little girl

[f.scala]

I took this shot of my niece (2 1/2 yrs), while we were at a pizza place the other day. She made a game of hiding her smile every time I pulled out the camera!

I'm hoping for some input on the composition. And also, do you think having her hands on her face is distracting?



info:
Camera: Nikon D200
Exposure: 0.022 sec (1/45)
Aperture: f/1.4
no flash

[cphoniball]

Technical stuff before I talk about the composition: It looks a tad fuzzy. I'm not completely sure whether this is because it's out of focus or motion blur. Working at f1.4 gives a very, very small DOF so that may have been a problem, but 1/45 is pretty slow for a moving child as well. I'm pretty sure with the d200 you can bump up your ISO to 200 without image quality suffering much (if at all), and you could have halved your shutter speed to stop her.

I like where you placed her in the frame. The shift in background (from very bright to very dark) is a bit distracting, but not too bad, and I like the direction and quality of the light. Having her hands on her face isn't distracting at all, as they're critical to her expression. I'd say they make the picture better, if anything.

[Trader]

I agree with the other comment made. I would definately increase the ISO on a shot like this. The other thing I notice on my monitor is that the color looks a little on the warm side, did you use Auto White Balance? Maybe it is just me???

[wal]

I'll normaly go for 1/60, minimum, if possible i'll push it to 1/125 when taking my kids photo. have tried slower and results wont be as great as i hoped, hands no problem, gives nice impression on the photo. IMO, maybe a bit too bright, can lose the exposure a bit by increasing shutter speed..

[f.scala]

Thanks everyone for the help. Definately things to try when I see little Natalie again!