Pictures of little people

[Jim Kuo]

The weather over the weekend (in London) was suprisingly brilliant, we went to Regent's park with my good friends and their 4 yr old. Taking portraits of kids isn't something I've done before, so I was struggling a lot.

Also, I found the focusing of X100 in still image mode (maybe that should have been my first hint ) wasn't fast enough for me to gain sufficient focus on the kid (they don't wait for you...). And I didn't get much success pre-focusing manually as I wasn't able to predict where he was going to be... Anyway, I finally achieved a little success using the brust mode...

Here are some results.

#1

#2, finally caught him while he is having an ice cream

#3, a deep thinker?

#4, with mum

Your feedbacks and comments are the most welcome.

Jim

 

[Brian Moore]

Nice ones, Jim. I like especially "deep thinker;" the sun flare is cool.

 

[Jim Kuo]

Thanks Brian, I also quite like how sunlight luminates his blonde hair.

 

[Pete Askew]

A nice set despite the difficulties Jim. I especially like the last one and I'm sure his mum does too.

 

[Jim Kuo]

Thanks Pete, that picture is now her Facebook profile picture

 

[Pete Askew]

And so it should be!! It's interetsing that her point of fous looks like it is just a tiny, tiny bit higher than the lens. I wonder where exactly she was looking. Maybe into your eye if you were shooting with your right eye to the viewfinder. Had you noticed or is it just me?

 

[Jim Kuo]

Not sure, maybe I should ask her. Perhaps she was looking at my shiny X100?

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I feel your pain Jim - chasing the grand-kids around with the camera is like trying to herd cats!

I think #2 and #3 would make great black and white shots - timeless memories

Nice idea with the ice cream - will have to try that one!

 

[Hamish Gill]

Great shots Jim! I love the ones into the sun! Really really nice!

What's "still image mode"? Something I'm yet to discover...

When closer focusing (or focusing at night) I offer find the EFV is a little more responsive that the OFV!
As nice as the OFV is, it's advantage of being able to see what is just out of frame isn't really relevant for this type of photo.
Another option, and I can't quite believe I'm saying this, but I do find my self using the screen on the back ... As you can take your time a little more be being a bit less obvious when you takin the photo...

 

[Jim Kuo]

Haha, Hamish, I am actually doing the same thing. Nowadays, I tend to shoot using the LCD on the back rather than the view finder . OVF is not great when you want to focus on close subject, also what you see is not exactly what you get due to the OVF parallax alignment.

Still image mode is Fuji's way of saying "single shot mode". I found it hard to get a sufficiently focused shot on a fast moving kid with shutter lag + focusing delay. In the end, I was able to get some small success using continuous focus + brust mode.

I found that the total write time in brust mode seems a bit longer, than still image mode to me, even if I only take one picture. Anyone else notice the same thing?

 

[Hamish Gill]

Im not sure if it takes longer ... or if it just seems to because it locks you out of doing anything else whilst its saving?

 

[Jim Kuo]

Maybe, I will check it out some more.

One other thing odd I noticed, is that in continuous focus mode (with the little side switch on the left flipped down), the camera seems to be continuously seeking focus (making funny faint noise) even without half pressing the shutter button. It's not a real issue, just this behaviour is different to my DSLRs.

Have you noticed the same thing?

 

[Jim Kuo]

Oh, this turns out to be an expected behaviour. It said so in the manual...