Need Tips: Photography on Kids' Birthday Celebration.

[cankhh]

Hi all photographers out there!

I'm new to photography for a year now. And I'm given a photography work tomorrow for a kid's birthday celebration. The party is majority for children but parents will be there I guess.

I'm not using a dslr but a semipro camera which is Nikon Coolpix P80. This camera has been a year old now. I have been researching about portrait photography with semipro cameras on the Internet, guess what I found out that I need to use semi-manual shots (though most the time I use manual shots). It says I need to use the aperture priority mode. Thus I need to have an aperture of about 2.8 to blur the background. To get the kids expression, I need to zoom in.

Besides this, any more tips? Perhaps lighting to look out for? Another question I would like to ask, kids movements are often fast, do I have to also change settings on my camera for this?

I'm so sorry I'm quite a beginner towards this because I only own a semipro and not a dslr. :angel:

 

[Reportage]

my experience is dont use AV unless its a formal shot where everybody is staying still. kids being kids...use Tv (Shutter Priority) instead and set shutter to maybe 1/125 or faster if needed provided got enough light.

focus on the eyes and if needed make them the centre of the picture and then in PP crop to get the picture you want.

take note of shutter lag and the time needed to take a picture in case you press the shutter too early and miss the golden moment.

here are some unedited pics i took with the LZ8 using Shutter Priority....or Sports Mode if you have it.

also try to minimize flash and try to be invisible if you can.

 

[ortega]

use the Scene Modes, either Face-Priority AF or Portrait or Party

read your manual to select the right scene mode