Have you discovered the continuous shooting mode (or burst mode) on your digital camera? Most cameras these days have them and if you get in the habit of using it the results can be quite wonderful.
The above sequence was taken by a Flickr photographer by the name of diyosa on her Nikon D50 DSLR which shoots at up to 2.5 frames per second (this sounds a lot but in the scheme of DSLRs its on the lesser end. For example my Canon 20D shoots at 5 frames per second). That means if she activates this mode and then holds her finger down on the shutter she can shoot five shots like the above ones in just two seconds.
In actual fact she took these shots over a longer period (just under a minute) but it illustrates the effectiveness of shooting lots of shots quickly as it’s produced a beautiful series of shots that would look wonderful framed together like this or even in a photo album on the same page.
Continuous shooting Mode isn’t just something that DSLRs have – most point and shoot cameras have it as an option also.
It’s a particularly useful mode for taking shots of any situation where there is movement. Obviously photographing children is one such situation but there are many others including the photography of sport, animals, and even in portrait photography.
When I’m doing a portrait sitting I quite often use continuous shooting mode simply because I find that subjects often relax and look most natural after the first shot that you take and when they lose the ‘posed’ face. Of course the beauty of shooting in a digital format is that even if the second, third and forth frames that you take are not as good as the first – you can just delete them afterwards with no cost associated.
Using Continuous Shooting Mode
It’s worth noting a few things to keep in mind when using this burst mode:
