Take pictures of a child on a moving swing

I've been taking pictures of my daughter on a swing. It's nothing fancy, it's

just a tot swing. Any way, I'm shooting with a Nikon D50 in manual mode,

shutter at 1/60, and 30mm sigma at 1.4.

 

We are in the shade, no flash, it's usually right before goes down, sun is on

my left, and I'm in front of her on my knees, dodging her as the swing

approaches. I know this sounds ridiculous, but it makes her laugh when I

scramble out of the way.

 

So here's my problem, I want to take a picture while she is away from me,

usually when's she reached her maximum swing height. The problem is that I'll

use autofocus right on her face or upper body but by the time I get a focus

beep she's moved and out of focus. What happens is only maybe 10% of my shots

are clear, and only maybe half are ones that I really want to keep. So I was

wondering, how do take care of this? Do increase the ISO or shutter speed? Or

am I not using the right lens for the job. Also, she usually takes up about

1/2-3/4 the frame when on the swing.

 

Or do I focus, lock it, and then shoot when she's back in the same position?

This is tough though because if I do this, I have no smile from her as she's

not seeing my face and losses attention. She's 11 months old.

 

Thanks for any advice in advance.

Increase iso to increase shutter speed to say 1/250. Also, I would shoot at

atleast 2.8 to increase dof, You can also pre-focus (MF) to a spot and time her swing.

Having said that, I would fill flash in the example you provided as the contrast between the

child and background is way too much.

As Leslie already suggested its a good idea to focus on a selected spot and get the timing right to shoot when she will arrive at that spot. You would need an F6 or D2X for the AF to be fast enough to follow her with exact focus. So better give up on this AF technique :-)

 

A slightly overcast day (but still a bit bright) would also be an anternative to the suggestion of fill flash if you do not feel familiar with this.

Zone focus: turn off the AF, and focus where she is going to be. AF is always reactive; use your mind and be predictive.

I used manual focus area selection but used the autofocus setting for tracking moving objects (forgot the technical term for it) to capture this pic of my wife and son on a swing. I used a 80-200@f2.8 shutter speed was 1/640 and focal length was 200mm(350).

 

 

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/10032583">Swing</a>

 

 

For low light shots you could shoot raw at iso 800 or 1600. I'm still surprised at how nicely the images come out at this iso especially if neat image or the like is used.

 

Also there is always flash. The 1.4 is a good low light lens but sometimes you have to cheat a little. To get more depth of field which should also increase the amount of in-focus area in front of and behind the focus point you could shoot at f/5.6 and use the built in flash. Shooting at f/1.4 leaves little room for focus error.

 

The trick to faster focusing at least for me is to not use the full auto focus that uses closest subject priority but to choose your focus point each time. This saves the camera a little work in trying to figure out whats the closest thing to focus on and speeds up the whole process.

 

Hope this helps,

Dan

a good way to shoot that shot would panning. You can use a flash to ensure some sharpness, but you will have great background blur, sensation of movement, and with a little practice, you will get your child in focus because you follow her as she goes... here is a link to that:

<a=href>http://www.ephotozine.com/techniques/viewtechnique.cfm?recid=221</a>

hope that helps. nick.

Child on a swing vs. flying aircraft. Which is more of a "problem" for the D50 autofocus system?

 

 

 

You did not mention if your D50 is set on 'C' continuous focus, and the focus points set to active...

 

 

 

The aircraft in the attached image are moving a bit faster than your kid on the swing, so the D50 autofocus should be able to handle your task.<div></div>

>Child on a swing vs. flying aircraft. Which is more of a "problem" for the D50 autofocus

system?

 

Ummm... the child on a swing? Irrelevant how fast the subject is moving if it isn't changing

the focus point. The lens is at or very close to infinity for the jet shot. The kid shot the lens is

moving from closest focus to mid distance, the widest part of the focus range. You're only

worried about shutter speed to freeze the jets.

 

Anyways, manual focus for the kid on the swing.

Mark

-Thanks for any advice in advance.-

 

Careful. Children move often above 1/10000. Use a flash :-)

Thanks again for all the advice. I learned a lot in this thread. They were all very good.

 

On a tangent, I don't understand what is meant by "contrast". I looked it up in the dictionary but I don't understand it in the image I posted. I guess I'm a little confused and I'd like to really understand what exactly this means.

 

Thanks.

I have taken similar photos of my kids. The 1/60s is a little low but I've been able to make it work without a flash. As stated before, pre-focus (manual focus if needed). Also, time the motion. Take the shot with the least amount of subject motion (ie. just as the swing is about to change direction, there is a moment of very little motion).

 

Play around with it. It is digital and costs nothing to play and hone techniques.

Stan

>On a tangent, I don't understand what is meant by "contrast"

 

Leslie meant the sky in the background behind your daughter is completely overexposed,

while your daughter's face is correctly exposed. If you had used fill flash the exposure would

be shorter, the sky would be less overexposed, and as a bonus you get flash bright points in

your daughters eyes which seem to add life to a photo.

Thanks Robert

<em>So I was wondering, how do take care of this?

-- Mark Rios<br>

</em><br>

Focus manually. Trip the shutter a split second before she is in

focus. This takes practice. Its something you just lean by

doing. Id use a higher ISO for a shorter shutter duration,

higher speed. It sounds like the AF just cant keep up. I

know the camera wasnt cheap but its Nikon most

economical consumer offering. It cant track like a

professional camera. <br>

<br>

The technique I describe is the way it would be done with a Nikon

F, Nikkormat FTn or Nikon F2, etc. It worked way back when. I

know manual focus is pretty difficult and critical focus isnt

in the cards. Maybe someone could hold the child in the position

where you want her in the photo. Use autofocus the set the focus

then start the swinging and shoot. Since you are moving out of

the way youll probably lose focus on each shot. You will

likely need to increase DOF to cover inevitable focus errors.<br>

<br>

Keep trying, this kind of photo will be of great value to the

child when she is older. Shoot all you can.<br>

<br>

Best,<br>

<br>

Dave Hartman.

Use the center AF sensor only to make the camera think less. First I would try AF-C to get the focus moving predictively with her. Alternatively, try "focus trapping" - put the AF on the AF/AE lock button (not the shutter button), so that your shutter button only trips the shutter. Put the camera in AF-S (focus priority) and focus at whatever distance you want to shoot. Press the shutter and hold it down, pointing the center AF sensor at her face. The camera won't take the shot until she swings back to that point and is in focus. As mentioned above, try a smaller aperture for some more DOF - at least f/2.8

Here is a cool idea I think you should try. I did not read all the posts to check but I do not

think anyone mentioned this... I think you will be happy with the effect after some trial and

error with shutter speeds and swing speed. Ok so put a wide-angle lens on your D50

(18mm portion of 18-70 would work). Set the aperture to whatever value that gives you

like a 1/30s shutter speed. Next, place your D50 in your daughters lap and set the self

timer (probably the 5 or 10 second setting, 2 seconds will be to fast). Now push your

daughter a bit on the swing and make her smile. When the shutter clicks you should get an

image depicting the motion of the swing (the background will be blurred in an arch

matching the swings path). This is just something I've tried sitting my camera on a

swinging bench (no people). So when I saw this post I though I'd share this great idea with

you.

 

Lukas

You might have better success shooting from the side. Same idea as for the photo of the jets. Doesn't really matter how fast something is going if it's staying about the same distance from you. Click on the thumbnail to see a larger version:

 

<p>

 

<a class='regular' href="http://www.merrillphotography.com/portrait/candid/outside/swinger.html"><img alt="Swinger" src="http://www.merrillphotography.com/canid/pics/jbm_park0507_05_small.jpg" border='0'></a>

For the photo below I used single-servo autofocus. While laying underneath the swing.

 

The routine was like this. Lay under the swing. Do a sit up and lock focus when she gets to the top of the arc. Keep the finger on the shutter button to keep the AF locked. Duck as she swings over me. Do another sit up the next cycle and take the photo. (Due to pendulum physics, the second cycle after I push will go back to pretty much the same height.) Push her once or twice. Repeat.

 

I missed the focus a lot. This one is off a bit (front focus) and I maybe could have dropped the shutter speed a bit to pick up some depth of field. Out of 32 shots from this angle, I kept 3 shots.

 

It might have been a bit more convenient to set the camera to autofocus only when the AE/AF lock button was pushed (I think it has a setting like that) and then I wouldn't have needed to keep my finger on the shutter. But the autofocus-recompose routine is ingrained enough that it was less of an issue than stopping to find the menu for programming the AF lock button.

 

As an added bonus, she was enjoying the novelty of the nutty guy who had to duck everytime she swung by. All this while baby sitting.<div></div>

But she was occasionally annoyed when I was taking pictures instead of pushing her on the swing.

 

Take lots of photos. Some of them will be sharp. Throw out the rest. 10% isn't necessarily bad. And if she only takes up part of the image frame, then just crop out the empty space.<div></div>

A horizontal crop could work with this image also. This is a bit fuzzier than could be done with an original camera file.<div></div>

This is something like what Lukas Jenkins was talking about. Use a slow shutter speed. Small aperture. Pan along the swing. Fill flash here manually focusing at 17mm. I was probably adjusting the flash output manually. And a bit of post-processing usually comes in handy to get the final image.

 

Can you tell I like doing swing shots?<div></div>

I have a D50 and I used the sports mode to get this picture. It tracked him pretty good!<div></div>

Coincidentally, just had a session where the kid wanted pics of himself on a swing. Again from the side. Easier to control the background that way, and the subject doesn't move so much relative to me. :)

 

<p>

 

<center>

<img src="http://www.merrillphotography.com/canid/pics/060528_010.jpg">

</center>

Just in case any one with a Nikon D50 is wondering how to do "focus trapping" like Brian mentioned above. This is how you do it:

 

menu button -> csm menu 02 to "AF-S" then csm menu 14 to "AF" and finally csm menu 15 to AE Lock "on".

 

Then just follow Brian's directions. Like he said, the camera will only release the shutter when the subject is in focus.

 

Thanks Brian!