Capturing moving children

We took little miss Teagan to a local Christmas tree lot to photograph her for Cavelle Kids winter clothing line. Teagan’s a mover and a shaker. So… I could have set my shutter speed at an even faster rate in order to be sure I captured her still and avoided movement. But I’m pretty comfortable with 1/160. That’s kind of my minimum shutter speed with kids because they’re so wiggly and active.

In this first image below with the pink dress, you can see that my focal point is pretty right on. I’m focused on Teagan’s cheeks or eyes and the part of the tree in front of my camera is blurry (which I like). The second image, where Teagan is wearing a green dress, my settings are fine for exposure. But my focal point missed Teagan and so she is a bit soft or blurry. The tree to her right is sharp, however. If this bothers you then you need to be sure to keep your focal point solely on the little girl and don’t let it move over to the trees.

I move a ton when I photograph my young subjects so I definitely miss focus now and then. In the third image, (pink dress) you can see that again Teagan is sharp and in focus. It’s definitely easier when they’re moving slower. It’s basically easier if you can get the child to walk instead of run. Haha!

My manual camera settings:

ISO: 400
shutter speed: 1/160
aperture: F 2.8
lens: sigma art 50 mm 1.4
body: canon 5D mark II (My mark three was sent into Canon Pro Services for it’s annual clean and check… I highly recommend doing this)