Wednesday, December 17, 2003

Prepare for those photographic moments

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

For most of us, the holidays mean tons of food, family, presents, outdoor Christmas displays and leftovers.

You can also guarantee that someone will pick up a camera to record part of the event for posterity. Or for the family scrapbook. Maybe even for some friendly family blackmail.

Yes, I’m guilty of all of the above.

Having taken newspaper pictures for the past 10 years, I’ve learned a lot by trial and error. Oftentimes more error than anything else.

So I figured I’d share a few tips to help those of you who are as photo-obsessed as I am.

Whether you have a newfangled digital camera, a 20-year-old hand-me-down Pentax or a single-use disposable camera, you can take great pictures. Believing in yourself is always rule number 1.

On to the tips:

1. Be prepared.

You can’t say enough about this. Have plenty of fresh batteries and film or memory cards on hand. Load your camera with new batteries and film.

If you use rechargeable batteries, freshen them up the night before also.

Nothing kills a good photo opportunity like a camera that won’t work.

2. Don’t skimp on the film. You’ll regret it.

Taking multiple photos of a given subject is most important when photographing children. They move around a lot quicker than us adults, and capturing the right moment with kids can be difficult.

Nothing beats the classic shots, like the child ripping into his present, mom and dad helping pull the gift out of the packaging, and the child proceeding to toss him/herself head-first into the box.

Such action sequences are possible only when you shoot a few (or more) shots of the same scene.

For example, my 2-year-old didn’t want to sit on Santa’s lap this year. Fortunately, Santa was giving out presents and Tyler was talked into getting a present out of Santa’s basket.

Employing the old military shock-and-awe ploy, the good wife swoops Tyler up and places him in Santa’s lap.

The first photo shows the “Huh?” look on Tyler’s face. In the second shot, he starts to realize he’s been hoodwinked. And on the third photo, well, he’s letting us have it.

Priceless moments.

Again, having fresh batteries is VERY important for sequence action pictures. Otherwise it’s going to take your camera’s flash 60 seconds or more to charge up and fire again.

By that time, you will have missed several good photo opportunities.

3. In some cases, it’s good to ditch the flash.

Pull up the shades and pull back the curtains. Good old-fashioned sunlight beaming through the windows makes for much better lighting in some circumstances. Even bright overcast skies can help you tremendously.

Canceling the flash on the camera takes a little guts for snap-shooters like my wife who use PhD (Push here, Dummy) cameras. But the rewards can be greater than the risk.

Obviously, don’t go by window light alone if it’s dark outside.

And if you’re ever in doubt, use the flash.

4. Exercise your trigger finger.

To take advantage of the quick grab-shots, particularly of the kiddies, keep the shutter button pressed down halfway while composing the picture. In most cases, this jump-starts the camera’s auto-focus system.

This particularly helps with digital cameras which have one or two-second delays after you press the shutter button.

In fact, if you can set your camera to “continuous AF” by all means do so. This means your camera constantly re-focuses as the subject moves to insure focus is crisp. Typically, only higher-end film and digital cameras have this feature, however.

On all other cameras, you may have to press and re-press the button halfway down if your subject moves significantly. This is because your camera’s auto-focus “locks” on the subject when you press the button halfway and when the subject moves the camera doesn’t change it’s AF until you tell it to by taking your finger off the trigger and pressing down halfway again.

Consult your camera manual for pointers on your camera’s AF system. Don’t just take my word for it.

Which brings me to the next important tip:

5. Break out your camera manual for a quick refresher.

This is particularly true if you haven’t used your camera for a while or you’re pulling an older one out of mothballs. Manuals are especially helpful for troubleshooting such tasks as film loading and interpreting what in the heck that blinking yellow light in the viewfinder means.

On some cameras that light means focus is off; on others it means the flash is charging.

You won’t know unless you dive into your manual for a few minutes.

6. If you’re using a disposable camera, you’ve only got two things to worry about.

First, stay several feel back from your subject. All the ones I’ve used require you to be at least 4 to 6 feet away from the subject.

Check your disposable camera to see its requirements. Most likely, the minimum range is listed on the camera itself. Otherwise, it’s on the packaging.

Second, watch your fingers. These cameras are pretty tiny and it’s easy to cover up the lens or flash while you’re shooting. Either error is fatal to the picture you just took, so make sure you’ve got your fingers out of the way.

One more thing. Make sure you don’t obsess about your photos to the point where you miss enjoying the moment.

Happy shooting everybody and Merry Christmas.

• **

When someone resorts to name-calling, it’s usually because their logic is flawed and they’re digging for the last bullets in the bag, which are often blanks.

It’s really no big deal. Criticism comes with the territory. Especially when you write something critical of a Republican president in an overwhelmingly Republican county, which is what I did with my column on the President’s secretive trip to Iraq for Thanksgiving.

The full exchange of ideas is what many newspapers strive for, regardless of how kooky those ideas are. Of course the cat would’ve been out of the bag had the press charter plane been used.

You could get around that by having a special military cargo jet haul the journalists in.

Still, the far better solution was to invite NONE of the media. Military journalists could’ve taped it and taken still photos for distribution to all media outlets at the same time.

Best of all, it would have heightened security by keeping any media workers from letting the secret slip.