What are your favorite tips for photographing kids?

[lucifie]

I'm an amateur, trying to learn how to take better photos. I'm mostly photographing my kids, but they're still pretty young and the cooperation is iffy. I have 4 kids, so it's nearly impossible to get a good shot of all of them at the same time and quite often they're moving targets. I especially have trouble in lower light. My little one (20 months) will either try to come to me when I'm taking a picture or if I'm trying to capture her doing something cute, she'll stop what she's doing and ham it up for the camera.

I've seen a lot of great pictures of kids, so I know it can be done, but most of my great pictures are pure luck.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

What are you shooting with and what is your skill level?

 

[HPS3]

My 2DD's are the same way, uncooperative. They don't like taking photos for me but have no problem with strangers(other photographers). I just takes chances when they aren't paying attention. I'm having the same troubles you are. I learned to shoot candids from farther away.

 

[lucifie]

What are you shooting with and what is your skill level?

Right now I have a Canon SX120is P&S. I'd say I'm pretty much a beginner. I've had some higher-end P&S cameras, but haven't ventured out of the Auto and preset modes much. My favorite setting on my current camera is "kids & pets" and I get decent amateur pictures, but not great.

Reading through this board has inspired me to play with my camera and figure out what it can do and I've discovered some things I didn't know it could do. It has gridlines that can show up on the LED display, making it easy to apply the "rule of thirds" and I've been playing with it in continuous shooting mode and have gotten surprisingly good results. I never really played with it on this camera because on my last camera the continuous shooting mode was pretty disappointing.

There's still a lot to learn, but now I'm kicking myself for going so long without learning more about what my camera can do.

I'm starting to look into getting a new camera just because this one has seen better days and I don't want it to die completely at WDW or so close to our trip that I wouldn't have time to learn how to use it. Several years ago I learned the hard way not to get a new camera right before an important event.

My only complaint about this one is that I have a hard time getting good indoor pictures unless it's a bright day and there's a lot of natural light coming in the windows. That could very easily be a problem with me and not the camera, though.