The swinger

[Manfred M]

My daughter took her one year old son down to the local playground and I took my camera along to record him there.

I pre-focused the camera and set it to shutter priority at 1/1000th sec and fired it when he approached the point in the motion where there was very little movement. I rather like how this one turned out.

[selig1656]

Terrific capture , free falling is what I remember of the swings , that sense that I could fly .

[bje07]

Very expressive
he says (if he can speak) "I can fly"

[Shadowman]

Nicely capture, love the background.

[george013]

My daughter took her one year old son down to the local playground and I took my camera along to record him there.

I pre-focused the camera and set it to shutter priority at 1/1000th sec and fired it when he approached the point in the motion where there was very little movement. I rather like how this one turned out.

Lovely image!

One remark. Try next time the AF-c mode. I think the focusing area is a little behind that kid. With 2.8 you don't have much leeway.

George

[IzzieK]

I bet in his mind he believe he can fly. What a nice disposition and smile.

[Dave Humphries]

Great capture Manfred,

My only immediate thought being 'there's just a bit too much on the LHS' - playing in LyteBox, I think there's a composition that works with less on LHS, but also with a little added to the lower edge*

* this might need to be an 'extend canvas and clone bg downwards' in order not to bring in something distracting.

Otherwise, there are so many things that 'tick boxes' for me, I wouldn't change a thing.

Just a thought, Dave

[Manfred M]

Lovely image!

One remark. Try next time the AF-c mode. I think the focusing area is a little behind that kid. With 2.8 you don't have much leeway.

George

I did George. I generally always have my camera on AF-C and single point focus. I tried several different AF focus points as well including 3D. He was too close and moving too fast for any of these to work, which is why I settled on the old-fashioned pre-set focus approach. The other solution would have been to go to a wider DoF, but I was concerned that the yellow traffic lights in the background would have become too sharp and too noticeable. Getting the focus and timing just right was tricky.

[dragon76]

You did well. A very difficult shot to do, especially @2.8, pendulum/back swing subject eye focus is a extremely tough with AF-C or AF-S. I'm with George that the focus hit the collar but it is still a lovely shot regardless. I love swing shots and have spent sometimes thinking of different ways to increase my keeper rate

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

When I do this again (he's still here for another few weeks) I plan to take a tripod and pre-position everything and will use a remote to trigger the camera. That way I can better watch for the point I want to make the shot without holding the camera to my eye.

[Donald]

From the discussion above, I'm taking it that you shot this in 'single shot' rather than using a high burst rate?

[dragon76]

Manfred

I found front swing is a bit easier to get a shallow DOF

Front shot @2.8





Side to side @1.4 - the best I could manage after 5 failed shots and still I could not get spot on.

[george013]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

When I do this again (he's still here for another few weeks) I plan to take a tripod and pre-position everything and will use a remote to trigger the camera. That way I can better watch for the point I want to make the shot without holding the camera to my eye.

Your model won't protest.

I'm just thinking about that pre-focus in this situation. You shoot with 2.8 at 135 mm. I don't know the distance to the object, but when it was 5 m you have a dof of only 0.23m . Then where do you pre-focus on?. Your subject is in the air. There is nothing you can use for that. It will be a guess with a small margin.
If you want to use pre-focus, I should focus on a point before the end of the swing and use continuous shooting. I think the best change to get a picture whith the right part in focus.
A thought about using continuous shooting, I don't think it's re-focussing between the individual shots.

I just wonder why AF-c doesn't give a right result.

George

[Manfred M]

George - what I did is got my daughter to hold the swing with the baby in it in the position where I expected to shoot it and did my focus on a static situation and focused on his eyes. I got her to position him a bit lower than the top of the first swing to compensate for the decay in the height /distance between swings.

Yes I was about 4 or 5 m away and was aware of the shallow DoF issue, but felt I could get close to a sharp focus.

The real issue I had was trying to determine the timing of pressing the shutter release as judging this with one eye pressed to the camera was challenging. Next time I will use a tripod and a slightly wider aperture. That will give me a better view as to when to hit the shutter release.

[Manfred M]

From the discussion above, I'm taking it that you shot this in 'single shot' rather than using a high burst rate?

Correct. I didn't think a burst would buy me much given the type of shot. I only get 4 fps and one second will cover a lot of distance when swinging.

[Manfred M]

Manfred

I found front swing is a bit easier to get a shallow DOF

I totally agree, and I got quite a few shots from the front. I just happen to like the expression and PoV better at the back of the swing.

[george013]

George - what I did is got my daughter to hold the swing with the baby in it in the position where I expected to shoot it and did my focus on a static situation and focused on his eyes. I got her to position him a bit lower than the top of the first swing to compensate for the decay in the height /distance between swings.

Yes I was about 4 or 5 m away and was aware of the shallow DoF issue, but felt I could get close to a sharp focus.

The real issue I had was trying to determine the timing of pressing the shutter release as judging this with one eye pressed to the camera was challenging. Next time I will use a tripod and a slightly wider aperture. That will give me a better view as to when to hit the shutter release.

Focus on a position before he got on the top. He will pass that distance twice: going up and going down. And then the machine gun mode.
Just my thoughts.

George

[Manfred M]

Focus on a position before he got on the top.

That is exactly what I did for the focus.

As I said to Donald, the D800 shoots at 4 frames / second. I'd rather take my chances on shooting for the in focus position as the burst mode is likely to miss.

[george013]

That is exactly what I did for the focus.

As I said to Donald, the D800 shoots at 4 frames / second. I'd rather take my chances on shooting for the in focus position as the burst mode is likely to miss.

Shooting burst mode is also shooting for the in focus position. I don't see a contradiction. Just create some leeway for yourself and make use of it.

George

[William W]

Great fun. Bet a Mars bar you were in your element "playing photos" with him! Kids make such fantastic Subjects.

Nice shot.

WW