Little E. gives his pops a hug when he gets home from work. It's cute, ya know? Plus, I'm still vetting one of my lenses, deciding whether I want to keep it. It's fast (f/1.8 maximum aperture), which makes for sharper images at wider apertures, but sometimes I feel like it's not as sharp as I'd like. I'm beginning to see, however, that it looks great for portraits, but perhaps not as good for landscape distances. This one was made at f/3.5, and E. has nice crisp eyes, but pops is out of focus. This brings the viewers' eye right to E.'s eyes and smile, right where the focus should be. This shallow depth of field sets this sort of snapshot appart from the kind that has everything in focus--this type feels more composed even though pops just walked in the house. But hey, with kids this cute you can't make a bad exposure.
The trick with kids is just being ready. I shoot in Aperture Priority modes ("A" on Nikons, "Av" on Canons). This mode allows me to control the depth of field and not worry about the other settings. This is optimal for me because nothing looks more professional than portraits with a controlled depth of field.
Also, start coaching your spouse, kids, or whomever might be holding the little guys to turn toward the light automatically when you point the camera their way--that makes it much easier to get nice images. Remind your...mature mother-in-law that she is not the subject, and that she will look flatteringly out of focus; she'll begin to trust you, and she'll appear more relaxed and natural in pictures. Finally, show her the pictures on the computer or in print after you have finished them off with processing when she looks good--don't just show her raw on your tiny camera screen!
Nikon D90, 85mm lens, f/3.5, 1/160s, ISO 800, east facing window light in the afternoon (see the square catchlights in the eyes?).
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