How To Take Great Baby Pictures

June 10, 2008 @ 8:12AM

How To Take Great Baby Pictures

By Damien Franco

As many of you may know we have a new addition to our family. So it only seems appropriate that we discuss how to take great baby pictures. There are many things to consider when composing a baby portrait. Here are a few.

Use the right lens

Lenses are super important to all aspects of photography. This can be especially true when capturing portraits of babies (or any person for that matter). Wide angle lenses tend to distort features rendering a child’s nose abnormally large while shrinking the ears as well. Most portrait photographers are going to use around 85-100mm focal length in order to preserve a more natural look with proper proportions especially when capturing the face. You can use a wide angle when capturing body parts and get some great effects so practice with both.

Utilize their curiosity

Babies are curious creatures indeed. As they grow in both body and mind the world offers babies an enormous amount of new information with every touch, taste, and smell. Use this to your advantage. Lemons and limes can produce fun sour faces, while feathers will provide giggles and smiles. Shiny, fuzzy, or sticky objects, and everything in between, will help you capture baby pictures full of curious variety.

Light

Low window light can provide some of the most beautiful and natural light on a baby’s face. Go ahead an move that crib over to the window and set your ISO to 200 if there is enough light. You’ll get soft sweet images sure to make the grandparents smile.

5.6

That’s the preferable f-stop you should be aiming for. You can of course go lower, but anything higher than f8 and everything in the background will be competing with your child’s spotlight. We simply can’t have that.

Taking pictures of babies doesn’t have to be hard and you can produce some really beautiful images if you just work on composition, light, and variety. Get high angles and low angles; hands and feet; ears, nose, and mouth; and just have fun with it. Just like any other aspect of photography or art, the more you practice the better you’ll get.

Photograph at top baby6 by jjacioux

Here are some other great baby pictures from our readers (okay, that last one’s mine) -

Comments

Anonymous

3 years ago

Fabulous shots and a very informative article.
Thanks for the tips!

Anonymous

3 years ago

Awesome Shots - CONGRATS

Anonymous

3 years ago

Probably more applicable to film than digital, but thought I'd mention something anyway....

I love using shallow DoF and low light in my work. Often I'm shooting my kids in doors at f1.4 or f2. While sometimes the focus is tough to get spot on, occasionally that sort of aperture with a missed focus results in a beautifully soft portrait, where sharpness could have ruined the moment.

That being said, I'm going to try and start aiming for f5.6 now :)

Anonymous

3 years ago

@ Niels and Mike - Thanks

@ the_wolf_brigade - You are correct that a very shallow depth of field, especially in low light, will create some really great soft images. Most people don't have lenses that will accomidate a f1.4 or f2 if they are just working with a DSLR kit. That being said, it's always great to experiment with all sorts of f-stops and shutter speeds to get varied results. Furthermore, at f5.6 or f8 you should be able to get both eyes in focus (or close to) if the subject in question is angled at the camera.

PS. You should really invest in a faster lens to get that great shallow depth of field that the_wolf_brigade is talking about.

Anonymous

3 years ago

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Anonymous

3 years ago

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Anonymous

3 years ago

Great article. I love your photo, so precious.

Ally

Anonymous

2 years ago

thanks for the nice informations. can you suggest a book or an e-book to us?

Anonymous

2 years ago

How to Photograph Your Baby: Revised Edition [Amazon] is the book I bought for my brother-in-law. They had their first baby just recently. While I haven't read this one in particular, I have read one of the author's other books and it's what I used as the basis for this purchase for my brother-in-law. He found it informative and the proof is in the pudding so to speak. The photographs he's been producing of their beautiful child have been stellar indeed.

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9 months ago

You do things when the opportunities come along. I've had periods in my life when I've had a bundle of ideas come along, and I've had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I'll do something. If not, I won't do a damn thing.It is quite acceptable.
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