The digital camera has many benefits. Not only can you shoot a picture and then delete it if you don’t like it, giving you more room to retake the picture, but you can upload the pictures from your camera onto your computer in order to crop them, edit out blemishes and red eyes, or just make a little tweak to the coloring or contrast in your picture. You can then upload your pictures to a site like Clark Photos, where you can order copies of the pictures you want, in the sizes you want them, or gifts for friends and family members. How do you go about taking the BEST pictures of your baby however?

Posing
Don’t always worry about posing your baby. Sometimes the best pictures are the accidental ones, taken on the fly or spur of the moment. Catching that sideways glance or the tummy time moment might prove to be magical. There are times when posing your baby may be called for. If you want to get a good shot for Christmas cards you can try sitting your baby up, or leaning him against a background or object, and hoping he will smile for you…just so you get that perfect shot. All pictures don’t always have to be posed and planned out.

Background
Think about your background. Take your baby to the woods or to a field of flowers to get some great shots of him. If staying at home consider what your baby is going to be wearing and use a sheet or blanket in a complimentary color. If your baby has bright blue eyes, taking pictures on a blue back ground might really help bring them out. If you have a bright outfit that you want to put your baby in for pictures, try using a black or white blanket as the background, so that your baby stands out more. Pick colors that will draw out your baby’s best features and highlight the mood of your baby.

Props
Props are nice to throw in with pictures done at home in order to change things around some. In the spring get some fresh flowers and let your baby play with them while you snap away. Or take your baby outside and put him in an old wagon taking pictures of the scenery. Pets can often bring out the best smiles and laughs in a baby, so using a pet as a prop during your baby’s photo shoot may get you some great shots. Pictures taken of your baby while he is playing with his favorite toys can be fun and more true to life, as they would rarely be posed and more than likely be “fun” pictures that you will look back on and laugh about. Keep changing your props around so that the pictures always look new, fresh and exciting.

Coloring
Not only can the coloring of your background change a picture and make it exciting, but the coloring of your picture itself can give it a completely different feel. With digital cameras and/or photo enhancing software you can buy for your computer you can easily change any color picture to a black and white or sepia theme. With many cameras you can actually take the picture in black and white. Since most pictures are done in color, these colorless pictures often add a different feeling to your picture, whether it is an old fashioned or vintage. Certain props may go better with different coloring as well, for instance picture of your baby girl wearing an oversized flower rimmed hat would look great as an old-fashioned picture in the sepia coloring.

Other Family Members
Adding other family members to pictures with your baby can make them not only unique, but sweet. Posing dad and your baby, or having dad take a picture of you and your baby will be cherished and loved for years to come. If you have more than one child, taking pictures of the siblings playing and laughing together will give you a lot of picture choices for albums, gifts and to hang on your wall.

Never be afraid to try something new with your baby when it comes to taking pictures. It may work, it may not work. In reality, 20 years from now you probably won’t remember why many of the pictures that didn’t work, turned out the way they did. They will still be pictures that captured a split second of your child’s “babyhood” that you will never get back. So take your camera and take lots of pictures! Have fun with it! Soon your baby won’t sit still long enough to allow you to get good pictures, or he will get to a point where he doesn’t want pictures taken of him and the easy days of picture taking will come to an end.

Equipment: camera, meter, flash, tripod

This article is a simplified photography course directed at new photographers out there who want to know where to start.

If you really want to learn photography the first thing you need is a good affordable and reliable camera. It must, and I repeat must, be able to shoot in fully manual and fully auto focus modes. (This leaves out any digital cameras on the market right now, sorry.) To really learn photography you must understand the equipment. You’ll need to learn how manipulating the shutter speed, aperture, and focus will have a dramatic effect on your photos. Meters, if you have a camera that can work in a fully manual mode it should have an internal meter suitable for what you will be doing. Tripod, you’re going to need one whether it’s portrait work or landscapes you’ll need one eventually. Luckily you don’t have to spend a lot here. Just something lightweight and durable. Flash, you can buy a separate camera mounted flash, which is great if you can afford it. Consider what kind of photography that you will be doing though. If you’re going to do mostly nature and landscape, you may only need the fill flash that comes with most cameras today. If you plan on doing portraiture alone you will want to consider a camera mounted flash that has an adjustable angle.

Film, film speed to be exact. Slower speeds (25 to 400) are intended for portraiture and landscape photography. Faster speeds (600 and above) are intended for actions shots and photojournalism. So first you need to know what you going out to photograph and make sure that you have the appropriate film for the job.

Now that you have the camera loaded with film consider shutter speed. Do you want to blur motion, or freeze it? If there is no motion at all what shutter speed do you need to expose the scene with natural light. From 1/60th and down to the bulb setting will blur most motion. For example if you want to blur the water in a waterfall, a setting of 1/30th should work. (You’ll need a tripod though.) 1/125th is a normal setting for most shots. On many cameras the 125th setting is marked in a different color to make it obvious. If you want to freeze action you’ll need to start with 1/500th and work up from there. The faster the motion the faster the shutter speed needed to stop motion. Many cameras go up to 1/2000th of a second. If you’re trying to use natural light alone in a scene you will want to determine the aperture first and then see what shutter speed you need to properly expose the scene for available light. (Keep in mind sometimes there isn’t enough light.)

Aperture, these are the set of numbers on your lens closest to the body of the camera. They can go from 1.8 to 22, and they are referred to as F-stops. These numbers determine how much light reaches the film inside of your camera. Most internal meters will blink on the appropriate aperture for the shutter speed that you’ve set, or the speed you’ve set will blink if your F-stop is correct for the speed. Both the F-stop and shutter speed can be changed to expose the scene correctly. Consider that the faster the shutter speed the more light will be needed to expose the scene correctly. This makes logical sense if you think about it. If the shutter isn’t open as long, fast shutter speed, then there is less light able to make it to the film and so the scene must be brighter to expose correctly. To learn, bracket your shots. Take the first shot at the aperture suggested by your meter, move one stop up, take a photo, one down, take another photo.

Flash, I personally like shooting with natural light whenever possible and at most I use a fill flash. But if you’re going to do portrait work then most of the time you may be indoors and you will need a flash sometimes. For the amateur the fill flash units that are on the top of most of today’s cameras are wonderful for basic work. You will have to read your manual on your particular flash unit to learn what it can and can’t do. This is where the camera that is fully manual and fully auto is great for the amateur. You can usually set it so that the camera will meter and set the flash output accordingly and then you still can control the shutter speed and aperture.

This week’s assignment:
Have several rolls of 400 speed film, find a subject that you can work with preferably something that won’t move, and shoot one roll of film. Shoot some of the roll in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Bracket every shot, take notes on time of day and light conditions, and what your settings (aperture) were for each frame, keep the film speed the same for the entire roll. Have the film developed and examine the photos. You should be able to see a difference in each frame. You’ll need to repeat this procedure until you feel that you understand the relationship between shutter speed and aperture, and every camera and meter has it’s own quirks and differences, you’re camera will act differently than someone else’s. This way you will learn you own particular camera as well. Once you have a sense of how aperture works you won’t need to bracket every shot you take, you may only need to do it in cases where you want to be extra safe on exposing the subject correctly.

If you have some specific questions please visit my Photography Forum.
© 2004 Kelly Paal

About The Author
Kelly Paal is a Freelance Nature and Landscape Photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Recently she started her own business Kelly Paal Photography. She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.

One main advantage of digital photography is you can see the results immediately. You can also delete a shot immediately that you do not like, making room for more pictures on your memory card. It is very nice to be able to take a picture and then take a look at your screen to see how the picture turned out.

The disadvantage is, for the more inexpensive cameras, there’s a time delay between pressing the shutter and when the actual picture is taken. Your subject might be situated perfectly, but in the few seconds between the time you push the button and the time the picture is actually taken your subject may blink or sneeze, making the picture not come out right. This can make it harder to take candid pictures. One solution is to see whether your digital camera can prefocus by pressing the shutter halfway before you take the shot. Prefocusing can cut the time it takes to shoot the picture because the lens is already in position.

The cost of digital cameras can be very high. As the technology improves there are more and more expensive cameras on the market. The more mega pixels your camera has, the better the picture and the more expensive it will be. Per dollar, it’s still much cheaper to buy and use a film camera.

Some photographers claim that you will never get as good of a shot with a digital camera as you can a film camera. The digital cameras can make incredibly beautiful pictures with five-meg chips but even three-mega pixel cameras can deliver nice results. To a non-trained eye, a person probably would not see the difference between a picture taken with a digital camera and a picture taken with a film camera.

Relax
Try to stay relaxed. If you feel tense your body will look tense and you will create hard lines that make a picture look stiff. If you are relaxed you are more likely to have a natural expression and smile in your photograph.

Angle Yourself
If you are standing up, turn slightly and rest your weight on one foot. If you are sitting, angle to one side or the other. This will give an added dimension to your pictures.

Smile Small
Many people do not like huge smiles on themselves. Often a big grin will make you look like you are squinting which will throw off the picture. Learn how to look natural by only slightly smiling or smiling about 3/4 of the way. You can have a beautiful smile only showing a small amount of teeth. Being relaxed will also help you accomplish this smile.

Don’t Look Directly At the Camera
Always look above the lens and not directly at the lens. This will help avoid the appearance of red-eye and will also help you look a little less posed and more natural. Looking up will also help raise your chin just a little bit so that you will not have an appearance of having a second chin.

Whiten Your Teeth
If you have time use a teeth whitener for a few days before your pictures are to be taken. While these are normally not permanent, they will make your teeth look nice and white long enough for you to take a great picture.

Dress for Success
Many pictures that you see you are able to say just from the clothes, “That picture was taken in the 50′s or 60′s.” In order to dress timelessly avoid clothes that are patterned or contain ruffles, frills or big sleeves. Wear simple, solid colored clothes that look timeless.

Check Your Mood
Be sure you are in a good mood when you go to get your pictures taken. If you are upset, overly tired, or just not feeling happy it will be hard to relax and hard to take a good picture. If you have pictures scheduled for a day when you are in a bad mood, consider rescheduling them.

How to Create Focus when you cannot Change the Focus
The good news or bad news depending on how you view it, is that point and shoot cameras do not have focusing abilities. This means that you can’t really take close up baby pictures without getting very close to your baby. It also means that you don’t have to worry about photos that are horribly out of focus because you hit the wrong button. When getting to know your camera (I recommend doing this before baby debuts) you should take the opportunity to take pictures of one object (such as a stuffed animal) at various differences in order to see how those pictures came out on your camera.

Taking the time to know your camera is an important first step in taking the baby pictures you have dreamed of taking of your baby. You may find that some of your innocent little baby photos are just the stuff the baby photo contests winners are made of. Truthfully, however, there is much that can be said about taking the time to learn your camera before taking photos of your bright bouncing little one. This allows you to know the best angles for certain views, how close or far away you need to be in order to achieve a certain look, and the perfect distance for photographing larger groups as they go gaga over your little one.

While you cannot manually focus your fixed focus camera you can affect the picture you create of your baby by moving changing the distance between you and your baby. The most important thing to remember is that by keeping your focus on your baby and creating a background or setting that doesn’t diminish your baby’s importance or prominence within the photograph you should have a beautifully focused photo of baby to remember for years to come.

Keeping the Camera Handy
This may sound like an obvious one, but with some of the chaos that comes along with having a new baby in the house you may, understandably, tend to forget where you put the camera down last. A good idea is to always try and keep it in the same spot – even if it means taking a few extra steps to reach the kitchen counter or end table in the living room once you’re done using it. This ensures a means of convenience in your newly, sometimes inconvenient world and is just one helpful hint so you’ll always know where it is and have it easily accessible for all those special shots you want to snap.

Charge It!
The batteries that is. If you’re using a digital camera, you know how fast the batteries can run out – even the good ones. So the charger that comes with most digital cameras can be one of your newest and most dependable friends. The last thing you’d want to happen is to miss an opportunity for capturing that precious moment because the batteries in your camera are drained. And remember, the batteries begin to drain even when the camera is not in use. So try to keep in mind that after every ten shots or so you’ll want to place them back in the charger so they’re ready to go when you need them. Of course, don’t forget to also put them back in the camera once they’re fully charged again.

Go For It!
Once you’ve got your camera and battery situation under control, don’t be afraid to take as many photos of your new baby as you want. Even the littlest event is an event – to you, so don’t worry if you think you’re over doing it – you’re not. Just remember while you’re snapping away, bright lights, including the flash on your camera, may irritate your baby’s eyes and attitude so try to take as many shots as you can during daylight hours or even outside in the sun’s natural light whenever possible.

We all try to get the best to our children but more and more I realize that sometimes spending more does not necessarily means getting the best for our money.

This article aims to share a lesson we learned that cost us some money. We hope it may help you to save some.

As a Mom I just love to take pictures of my children. They are gorgeous to me. I am sure yours are gorgeous too. The memories are priceless. I was buying some disposable cameras and taking several pictures of my children. Then I would develop and keep the ones I really liked. My husband kept insisting in buying a digital camera, which initially I was reluctant to make a big investment. After he took the time to explain that despite the almost $ 500 dollars for a good digital camera (today our camera is less that $ 300) at the long run we would save a lot of money. Usually I would run from 3 to 5 disposable cameras a month. It is actually not a lot, only 120 pictures you can take. With the development all together would cost from $ 15 to $ 25 dollars each. This was around $ 45 to $ 125 a month. Since I have my digital camera, I take as much pictures as I want. No worries about expending money. I just delete the ones I do not like and keep the ones I like. When I have a picture I really love I just print it in our high resolution printer and frame it. I have then saved and organized by year and events. It is easy and cool to show to relatives and friends in our 17” monitor. Every year we save a back up on a CD or external hard drive to be on the safe side.

We have a canon s40 which is good camera. There are several others with good features in the market. You are free to choose. Consider this a good advice from a Mom who realized how much I have paid for little service with regular cameras. Digital cameras are the way to go. I already saved on the money I paid for it. 2 years latter I can not live without my digital camera. By the way it also let me record great videos up to 3 minutes. They are just adorable.

About the Author:
Barbara De Oliveira
http://www.lulu-baby.com