Don't teach 'em to say cheese

Kid pictures are best if the child isn't looking at the camera and sporting one of those awful say-cheese smiles.

Get down on their level and watch for an action moment. If you have trained your children to ignore the camera, you can get in close with a wide angle and capture an intimate moment unmarred by an eyes-toward-the-camera stare complete with a foolish say-cheese grin.

Fiona had been having a ride in her sled when she realized she should share the fun. She loaded her teddy bears in the sled, grabbed the rope and trudged through the deep snow with teddys in tow. This was the picture. This is the memory moment. Keep its uniqueness intact by not injecting yourself into the moment. 

I shot this with a Canon S90 set to 28mm and fully automatic. I could have brightened the image a little more in Photoshop, see below, but I hate reopening images that I have enhanced and saved. Each time that you open 'em, change 'em and save 'em, you degrade 'em. That's the rule.

If you may reopen an enhanced image later and modify it, save it as a TIFF or another file format that does not cause image degradation with multiple openings followed by changes before saving again.

What magic did I perform in Photoshop to brighten my first image? I moved the white endpoint in Levels taking care not to lose too many highlight tones. Using Levels makes this easy. Just note the tonal graph and don't cut out too deeply or eliminate too many. Then in Curves bend the tonal curve by grabbing it near the highlight end and giving it a smooth curve along its entire length. I prefer a smooth curve. I find it makes the tonal change appear natural and not forced over what we used to call at work "over worked."

My Canon S90: should I trade it or keep it?

My granddaughter and her mom scroll through photos on mom's iPhone.

I'm wondering about a new camera. My Canon S90 was state-of-the-art when I bought it a few years ago. Today's model, the Canon S110, has dropped back in the pack; It is no longer a leader but a follower, an also ran. I understand both the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 and the Fujifilm XF1 sport better sensors, the all-important heart of a digital camera.

Plus, both the Sony and the Fuji boast zoom lenses opening to f/1.8 when used at wide angle. Very nice. The Sony seems a bit expensive, and so I am leaning toward the Fuji if I should make the jump. But, and it is a big but, my S90 is still delivering. I still get the pictures with my present camera kit. I can wait, and save. And the rumour mill has it that the next generation of my beloved camera will have the much lusted after f/1.8 lens, and maybe an improved sensor, too.

Archive child's art with point and shoot

 
Kids make art; They crank out a constant flow of the stuff. With an innate love of the abstract, they are prolific painters in the modern style. Fiona may be no abstract expressionist, then again maybe she is, but my wife and I like to share her work. We hang it on our fridge while secretly thinking it should hang in a gallery.

Unfortunately, a piece of art faces a short, tough life mounted on our fridge door. I saved some of Fiona's best pieces, but it soon became obvious that it was going to be impossible to save every splash of colour applied to a page.

This is where the digital camera comes in. Save your child's art for posterity, or your grandchild's, using your point and shoot. With a little luck the images may have a greater life span than the pigments used to make the original art. How stable are paints found in child's art set? Will the creation fade in sunlight?

Although there are questions about digital archiving of art, I'm betting digital images will last longer than cheap paint on coarse paper.

A note about the art: Fiona used her hands to paint the flower petals. "Watch gug-ha," she said. "Using your hands makes more complex colours." The three-year-old was right. She doesn't even own a warm brown paint but she managed to use that tone to tint a petal in her painting.

Which bring us to this: There are three things to keep in mind when archiving a kid's work.

1. Shoot a full frame picture of the work. If you ever want to make a print, you want all the subtle nuances captured in the image.
2. Shoot a picture showing the image on display.
3. Try and get at least one photo of the young artist with the work. A picture showing the work being painted or sketched or whatever answers this nicely.
4. Remember to keep the light illuminating the work "clean". Soft, mid-day daylight streaming through a large window is excellent. You don't want the picture tinted orange from an old tungsten light bulb or green from being lit by fluorescents.

Shooting action with a point and shoot

For me, the little dancer in the middle of the image  makes the picture.

I think of my Fuji FinePix HS10 as a glorified point and shoot. It appears, at first glance, to be small version of a DSLR but it is more illusion that fact. Oh, it has some nice features, I love the manually controlled zoom. It works just like my professional zoom lenses from my days as a newspaper shooter. But the oh-so-slow lens is a killer — a picture killer.

If you are like me, too poor to afford a complete DSLR kit, a couple of point and shoots can work just fine but you have to make some concessions. You've got to accept that you will have a high failure rate when it comes to taking pictures under difficult conditions.

Something that most folk forget is that action is not constant. If dancing girls are hopping about a stage, there is a moment when they are neither hopping up nor down. Action stops while the direction of the action reverses. Capture this peak moment and even a slow shutter speed will yield a picture.

Capturing the peak moment is easier said than done. I find with my HS10 that if I use the continuous shooting mode I increase my chances of hitting this action-capturing sweet spot.

Link the use of the continuous shooting mode with shooting moments when action has actually stopped is an even better way of guaranteeing an image. For instance, with the dancers there was a moment at the end of every reel or jig when the girls took a pose before bounding off stage. These poses made for perfect moments for maximizing the chance of capturing a quality photo.

One nice thing about posed shots is the quality; It is good enough quality to make acceptable prints. When images are presented online, they do not need the resolution demanded by images being made into prints.

If you are sacrificing movement in order to get a good image, watch for images with other features that can give the picture visual punch. Colour is a good thing to watch for. Splashes of colour almost always add to the appearance of a picture on a page.

Shooting a dance performance, inside on a stage, can be difficult when using a point and shoot. But, it is not an impossible situation. But, if there is one dancer, a daughter or granddaughter that you simply must have in a picture, go for the posed shot.

Use "motor drive" with your point and shoot

Firing at wide angle maximizes the f/stop in use.

 O.K., it's not quite a motor drive. But, holding the shutter button down on many point and shoots will give a continuous burst of shots at a subdued speed — more like an old fashioned camera winder than one of today's super quick motor drives. Still, even a humble winder has its place.

My Canon S90 (the Canon S110 is the replacement) has an f/2.0 lens when used wide open. This demands shooting at wide angle. As the lens is zoomed it loses maximum aperture size. Shooting at wide open with the lens at wide angle, set the camera to available light photography. You want natural looking images taken without a flash. Most folk prefer the look of available light over harsh on-camera flash.

The school gymnasium where my granddaughter's Christmas pageant was held was somewhat dark, at least for photography. The shutter delay on my point and shoot struggled to focus and this meant lost pictures.

In situations like this I have found waiting for picture moments and then simply laying on the shutter button works wonders. Line up your shot, or anticipated shot, and then when the moment is right start firing. With luck you will grab an image with minimal subject movement. (I know you will hold the camera steady and keep camera movement to a minimum, right?)

As this was a picture moment, the potential for capturing a good image is there. Unfortunately, the slow shutter speed necessitated by the available light approach dooms many of the images. But, with my system you will have choices and a few of those choices may be just what the (photo) doctor ordered.

Points to remember:

• Wait for a picture moment.
• Shoot at wide angle to maximize the f/stop in use.
• Keep the shutter button depressed to fire off a series of shots.
• Hold the camera steady. If possible, brace the camera. 
• Use a very large SD card. You don't want to fill your card during your shoot.
• View your pictures at the soonest possible moment; Enlarge the best ones to ensure you've got your picture.

Not quite a silhouette

Not enough light? Before turning to your on-camera flash, consider shooting a silhouette or even simply shooting an image that is darker than your usual.

I "printed" this with the background a little darker than in the original file. Now that I am viewing the image on a "page," I am not completely pleased with my work.

I think the image would have more punch if the back lit pink crown was more blown out and the pink fairy wing were brighter. The second image is posted below. What do you think?

Forced to use slow shutter speed, panning offered solution

Panning can capture subject movement.

Recently I visited Montreal, and while there I visited the Biodome. The exhibit made the news recently with the survival of a baby lynx, one of three, born to a captive Lynx that calls the dome home.

It's seems bright enough in the dome until one tries to take a picture of a moving lynx. Today's slow lenses in our point and shoot cameras have very small f/stops even when used wide open. These lenses demand the use of very slow shutter speeds in dimly lit indoor situations. A slow shutter speed, as you know, will not stop action. A blurry image is the result.

Panning is one way to squeeze an image out of a situation like this. Focus on the moving subject and pan, follow the subject with the camera. Squeeze off your shots carefully trying not to jar the camera. With luck, the feet and legs will be rendered as moving blurs of motion while other parts of the subject, such as the head in this case, are captured with an acceptable amount of sharpness.

My shot of the lynx was shot at 1/10th second at f/5.6 using and ISO of 800. I think it works. Sadly, I'm not sure the Biodome works for the lynx. The mother's constant pacing suggests stress.

Other animals in the Biodome environment looked quite happy. They were content. But I did not get a feeling of contentment and happiness from the clearly agitated lynx.