P#14 Q7B: What Is the One Thing You Most Want People to Remember from Today's Interview That Will Make the Biggest Difference In Kids Photography?

Forget Auto Exposure Settings Exists

Vik Orenstein: I don't think that I've mentioned it until now, but I think it's important to go off of auto. Just forget that you have an auto setting on your camera.

If you have a DSLR, the most important settings to learn how to use are aperture priority and shutter priority. You can get great results in either of those priorities for most situations and you don't have to go all the way to manual.

If you're shooting a point-and-shoot, you still can go off auto. You just want to use one of those pre-settings. Portrait mode is comparable to aperture priority and sports mode would be comparable to shutter priority.

Forget about that auto exposure setting -- forget about keeping your flash up all the time. Just start using aperture or shutter priority mode and that's going to be the first step to taking the thinking away from your camera and doing it yourself.

Audri Lanford: Great. I'd like to now ask our listeners to go to the 7PhotographyQuestions.com website and post their comments about the biggest insights they've gotten from today's interview. If you haven't yet signed up for our early notification e-mail list, I'd like to recommend that you do that as well.

Vik, thanks so much. This has really been wonderful. If people want to learn more about the things that you offer (and there really are quite a few of them), what's the best way for them to do that?

Vik Orenstein: I'd love to have them visit the BetterPhoto.com website. That's the site where I offer online instruction. That actually has links to all of my other galleries and previews of my books and other things.

Audri Lanford: Perfect. We've interviewed quite a few of the instructors from Better Photo. I've taken a lot of their classes and it's a great site. If you'd like to get much more in depth instruction from Vik on taking photographs of children and of babies, she has a great course at Better Photo.

We even have a discount as part of the Show Notes that can save you $20. There are also links to Vik's book and to her website, as well the Better Photo page with her class.

To Conclude

Knowing how to use our equipment plays a big role in the quality of your shots. According to Vik, you need to forget that auto exposure mode even exists when setting out in kids photography and opt for aperture and shutter priority settings instead.