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Being the Daddy of small children, taking portraits of them is quite tedious. Mainly because they run around and get excited, but mostly because they tend to refuse my instructions point blank. So getting a photo of their faces must be about the biggest challenge in photography.

So when I had my first “proper” digital camera with a good optical zoom, I could start experimenting. This first camera was an Olympus SP57 OUZ “bridge” with a zoom of approximately 520mm… although it seemed smaller than that to me.

During a holiday to Brittany, when my son was just 2 years old, one evening walking on the beach the lighting was excellent… lovely and golden despite being in the middle of March. So by chance, using the zoom, I shot a natural portrait of him. He didn’t even know I’d taken a photo and that was the best thing!

Distancing yourself from the kids can only a be a good thing. You get such a natural photo, a normal expression… none of the usual face pulling and with some luck they’ve not closed their eyes as you take that cructial moment.

Even if they know you have a camera in your hands, you can still get away with it. But it can take maybe 10 shots, to get a good one. In the old days before digital that would just be called a total waste of film. Today of course, it doesn’t matter…

A change of camera moved me from the bridge to using a digital SLR, after my Olympus developed a fault. Having used a bridge, I’m now starting to prefer my Sony A200 DSLR and recent purchase of a Tamron 300mm zoom lens. Unlike a bridge you can buy lots of add-on accessories to give more flexibilty, although the drop from 520 to 300mm zoom capability hasn’t affected taking portraits so much and is more than adequate.

Of course, the Tamron lens is a whole lot longer than the retractable zoom on the bridge camera – so it does stick out a lot when taking photos. It is also a lot heavier and so holding the camera steady presents a lot of challenges.

Still, I continue to take far off portraits of my children and the snowy Winter this year provided some great oppotunities.

But so far, I’ve taken all my portraits outdoors… which seems logical as having a lot more light does help. However, with my DSLR you can uprate the ISO to as much as 3200 and depending on the lens drop down the f stop to quite a low figure. It is usually better to lower the latter as upping the ISO can not only produce a grainy photo, but can limit you if the subject moves slightly even, with blurring. So taking photos of children presents yet more challenges.

However, being in the same room with a 300mm lens means that you have to be some distance from the subject and sometimes you can just take a snap at that right moment. I’ve not really tried doing that with my children in a confined indoor space, as they just move around too much still. However people sitting at a dinner table can provide some interesting portraits and even though they know you have a camera, they probably do not even realise quite how close to them you are as you look through the viewfinder!

So why not give some natural portraits a try with your zoom and post your findings and observations in the comments section?

Would love to hear how you got on!