First photo shoot with a one year old

[mgblunt]

This past weekend I completed my first photo shoot with a one year old girl and things went pretty good I got some great shots but I was wondering if I would have better off using aperture priority mode instead of shutter priority ? When looking over the results I noticed a few photo's with the father and the child on his lap one or the other were slightly out of focus I'm thinking by using aperture priority I could control the depth of field better. I would like some thoughts on how you would approach this kind of shoot?

 

[tirediron]

Why not full manual? You really need control over all aspects of the exposure, and the problem with both AP and SP is that they leave the other element to chance. If you're not paying attention and want to go from, say f4 to f8, you could wind up going from 1/60 down to 1/15; hardly ideal, but, adding two stops of ISO would have taken care of it...

 

[mgblunt]

Why not full manual? You really need control over all aspects of the exposure, and the problem with both AP and SP is that they leave the other element to chance. If you're not paying attention and want to go from, say f4 to f8, you could wind up going from 1/60 down to 1/15; hardly ideal, but, adding two stops of ISO would have taken care of it...

I have been practicing in manual mode and I am getting better all the time but I thought because of the challenges of photographing a one year old I might want to use a mode that would help in the speed catching that little rambunctious girl but I think your right I probably should stick to manual.

 

[Derrel]

I've seldom found shutter priority to be that useful, except when a very specific shutter speed is absolutely critical, such as when shooting panning shots, or helicopters, or when a very fast minimum speed is needed and there is plenty of light, such as when shooting from a fishing boat in the summer under bright ocean conditions, and 1/500 to 1/800 is really very helpful, and there is again, a LOT of light.

For the beginning people photographer shooting in natural light (not flash), I think using AUTO ISO in Manual mode is a good method, especially for Nikon or Pentax shooters, whose cameras offer this feature in a well implemented manner. Basically, it's a Manual exposure mode, where the photographer selects the best shutter speed and f/stop for the conditions. Then, the camera can raise or lower the ISO value as needed, to make that f/stop and that shutter speed deliver the proper exposure. This frees the photographer from constantly needing to adjust three different values, and allows the photographer to focus on the subject, and on composing the photos, and waiting for the right timing to snap them.

Using Nikon's matrix metering, and an exposure of something like f/5.6 at 1/500 second, it becomes a trivial matter to shoot a portrait session at the beach with a 70-300 zoom lens, or whatever, and not have to constantly adjust,adjust,adjust. Shoot a shot, look at the LCD and histogram....if it needs more light, click in a little Plus Exposure Compensation to the camera....BOOM!

I really like f/5.6, f/6.3, and f/7.1 for portraiture. I do not favor wider f/stops like f/2.8 or f/3.2 very often, unless it is just one, single individual. When there are two people in a photo, stopping the lens down to f/5.6 or f/6.3 or f/7.1 is my normal starting point.

 

[mgblunt]

I've seldom found shutter priority to be that useful, except when a very specific shutter speed is absolutely critical, such as when shooting panning shots, or helicopters, or when a very fast minimum speed is needed and there is plenty of light, such as when shooting from a fishing boat in the summer under bright ocean conditions, and 1/500 to 1/800 is really very helpful, and there is again, a LOT of light.

For the beginning people photographer shooting in natural light (not flash), I think using AUTO ISO in Manual mode is a good method, especially for Nikon or Pentax shooters, whose cameras offer this feature in a well implemented manner. Basically, it's a Manual exposure mode, where the photographer selects the best shutter speed and f/stop for the conditions. Then, the camera can raise or lower the ISO value as needed, to make that f/stop and that shutter speed deliver the proper exposure. This frees the photographer from constantly needing to adjust three different values, and allows the photographer to focus on the subject, and on composing the photos, and waiting for the right timing to snap them.

Using Nikon's matrix metering, and an exposure of something like f/5.6 at 1/500 second, it becomes a trivial matter to shoot a portrait session at the beach with a 70-300 zoom lens, or whatever, and not have to constantly adjust,adjust,adjust. Shoot a shot, look at the LCD and histogram....if it needs more light, click in a little Plus Exposure Compensation to the camera....BOOM!

I really like f/5.6, f/6.3, and f/7.1 for portraiture. I do not favor wider f/stops like f/2.8 or f/3.2 very often, unless it is just one, single individual. When there are two people in a photo, stopping the lens down to f/5.6 or f/6.3 or f/7.1 is my normal starting point.

I really do appreciate your response that makes a lot of sense.