David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

The Prize-Winning Kid Shot

Children are like flash floods: fast, low to the ground, and unpredictable. In other words, they're challenging for any kind of photographer.

Here are some tips:

• Be prepared. Rule number one is to have your camera handy at all times, charged, and with memory card space to spare. Great kid shots come and go in the blink of an eye. Parents don't have the luxury of keeping their equipment stowed away in a camera bag in the closet.

  Tip

  When you're shooting kids, or action, or natural disasters with an SLR, don't get hung up on replacing the lens cap all the time. The front glass is a lot more durable than you think, and the fussing might lead you to miss the shot.

• Get down there. The best kid shots are generally photographed at kid level, and that means getting low. (Flip screens are especially useful for kid shots, because they let you position the camera down low without actually having to lie on the ground.)

• Get close. Kid shots have much more impact if the subject fills the frame.

• Prefocus. Shutter lag will make you miss the shot every time. In many cases, you can defeat it by using the half-press trick (Take the Shot) when the kid's not doing anything special. Keep your finger on the button until the magical smile appears, then press fully to snap the shot.

• Burst away. Use your camera's burst mode to fire off several shots in quick succession. Given the fleeting nature of many kids' grins, this trick improves your odds for catching just the right moment.

• Force ...