Street shooting with a 4-year old

[Big Mike]

I love the idea of shooting their toys for prints to hang in their rooms...I'd definitely be doing that.

Good to know about the cheap 'toy' camera. My niece had one, I'll have to ask how long that one lasted. I could probably get a cheap 3MP digi-cam for $50 that would be better and just as or more durable.

 

[usayit]

Just my two cents...

I have young cousins who had various toy cameras... although the kids enjoyed them, I agree that the pictures looked like camera phone quality.

My 2 year old (doesn't really take pictures as much as play with the camera) has been "using" my wife's Olympus 720SW. The camera is PERFECT for him although we didn't intend on that purpose (my wife has a bad habit of dropping things). It is shock resistant and waterproof to I think 10 feet. And it has been dropped (thrown) a few times... Also, the lens is small and in the upper corner of the camera. It keeps his tiny fingers away as he holds the camera. Right now, all he does is point the camera at things and look at them through the display. Quality of images is typical P&S... maybe a tiny bit better.

 

[pm63]

I love that!

 

[dEARlEADER]

good stuff

 

[LaFoto]

Unfortunately, my children are too big already - I expect of them to take "adult" photos, as it were. But I gave my friend's boy (when he was two) my Powershot to play with while I was around. He was most fascinated with looking at things on the screen as he pointed the camera, and his little finger was still too weak to really press the button all the way ... but once home with his "photos", I detected one, all sharp (!) of his feet and the carpet below. I enlarged that one and gave it to my friend, and saw only the other day that they had it framed and put it to the wall in his room . He must have pushed the camera to his tummy and thus got enough "counter-weight" to actually manage to push the button.

 

[AverageJoe]

That's cool a cool series, what a fun activity for kids.

 

[mrodgers]

What are other people doing with their kids in terms of teaching them photography?

I have 3 digital cameras. I gave my old Fuji 2650 (2MP) to my 4 year old (soon to be 5) and my just turned 8 year old has her aunts old Nikon Coolpix 880 (3MP). I would like to teach the 8 year old a bit since the Nikon does have all the auto modes, but is limited to just a select few aperture settings.

My 4 year old just likes to steal my camera, the Fuji S5700. She knows to be VERY careful with it and since it's just a superzoom, she is allowed to use it. I wouldn't let her carry around a dSLR if I had one.

Here she is with her camera, the Fuji 2650 (taken by my other daughter and her Nikon).

And the 8 year old and her Nikon. The battery door is broken, so the rubber band is to keep it closed.

I didn't want to intrude on your thread, so the pictures are small....

What do we do with all these cameras? Well, I carry them all in a camera bag and.... well, that's it. Any time we go somewhere such as the zoo or something, I lug the cameras in the camera bag and they never want to use them .

At home, we have a lot of fun. I will make out a list of things and we have a photography scavenger hunt. If inside, I list stuff like a clock, pencils, various toys, different animals (they have every animal imaginable in a toy) or when outside, I will list outside stuff. Then they run all around photographing everything on the list. When done, we load them up on the computer and look at the photos. They have a blast with it.

 

[Iron Flatline]

... but once home with his "photos", I detected one, all sharp (!) of his feet and the carpet below.

I have about 8,000 pictures of feet and floor... or also popular with the young ones: pics of one's own eye, usually massively over-exposed - they're enjoying watching the flash go off while holding the camera the wrong way around.

 

[Battou]

One thing that matters to kids is PRINT! They want the piece of paper, it's more real to them.

Regarding that Toy Digital Camera: it's a piece of crap. Ours broke after a week, and it wasn't even dropped a lot. And the image quality is worse than a $50 cell phone. But it was fun while it lasted. Here's a "contact sheet" that I made for my oldest, who got it for Hannukah when he was almos four years old.

Wow, My brother in laws nephiew has one of those and I thought it was a cool idea, But I never got a good close look at it. It looks like that thing suffors from serious paralax error. If you look you can see just what it was the barer was trying to get on more than a handfull of them, all low and many off to the side, so much so that I doubt it's what they where seeing threw the viewfinder. That is a bad combination, especially when they see dad using the viewfinder on his camera. I think your G9 approach is far superior.

Thanks for showing those, I just might end up getting brother in laws nephiew a big christmas present this year. That is if he is still into cameras.

*EDIT*
Sorry, I had to resize it so you could read the post....