Action photography is often considered the most exciting kind of photography, but is also the most demanding for both your technique and your equipment. When photographing your children, capturing action photos can add interest and excitement when sharing with family and friends. It’s especially wonderful if you start to take action photos right from the beginning and when they are very young; they will think of it as a game and enjoy being photographed.
But the essence of many action shots is a highly magnified immediacy – something you can only get with a telephoto lens. The shutter priority setting on your digital camera was created for action photography. And, I think that the best camera for action photos of your kids is the Canon 5D Mark II.
Taking in action photos of children can be quite demanding of you.
"On The Go" in watercolor
To freeze action, you will need to use a fairly fast shutter speed. Luckily, this higher shutter speed works to your niche by opening up the aperture and diminishing the depth of field; this focuses the viewers attention specifically on your subject. On the downside, of course, focusing is more critical since the depth of field is more shallow.
Swinging Stop Motion
In general, I recommend that you use a faster shutter speed available to capture action. On the other hand, you can use a technique called panning to capture the subject in good, sharp focus and keep the background is a motion blur.
You can see the effect of “freezing” or stopping the action both in the photograph on the right where the little boy is swinging, and on the left in the canvas art print where the child is riding his scooter.
After you do all of the work to capture a very special picture of your child in action, why not have it printed on canvas and hang it in their room! Because a number of my visitors have also inquired about purchasing the “watercolor” or the “palate knife” artistic version of the canvas print: “On The Go,” just click on the image above (left) to purchase it or to make one of your own with your child in it.
Panning is convenient, both when you want to make a somewhat artistic statement about your child’s motion and when you know, the camera cannot muster up a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the motion in the ordinary way. Planning involve some effort on your part. To create a good pan, you need to twist your body in sync with the motion of the subject as you press the shutter release.
Here are some suggestions:
- Body position- Position yourself so that you can twist your body to follow the motion of the moving child without having the camera’s line of site blocked by something else.
- Shutter speed- Set the shutter speed of your Canon adjustable SLR camera
for about 1/60 of a second. Feel free to experiment with this, but if you set the shutter speed to slow, you won’t capture the subject effectively – it blurs. And if the shutter speed is too fast, you won’t get the pretty blurred background. - Twist your body – Twist your body with the motion of the child and track it through the camera’s viewfinder or on the liquid crystal display. Press the shutter release and continue tracking the child in action until after you hear the shutter close again. Just like in baseball or golf, make sure that you follow through the motion even after the shutter has released. In that way, you don’t stop panning in the middle of the exposure. You may need to practice this a few times to get the shot just right, but the good news is that electronic film is free.
- Extra images will be needed -You will especially need to take lots of action photos to get some really good images of your child; so don’t get discouraged just because there is lots going on at once. It’s worth the effort to get these wonderful photos of action of them!
Remember, keep taking lots and lots of photographs of your kids. You will be glad you did!
Betty Muscott, Child Photographer
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About Betty Muscott
Betty A. Muscott is an experienced child photographer and online entrepreneur for tools to capture great photographs of children by parents and grandparents. Connect with Betty on Google+
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