In The Picture

..the photography blog

Monday, June 24, 2013

Tips in Taking Great Candid Photos That Capture Life’s Perfect Moments

Candid photos are stolen shot photos that focus on what your subject is doing naturally and not on what the subject should be doing. These photos look really great as they look less cheesy and more natural. But how can one capture the best of life’s most spontaneous moments?

If you really want to learn or improve your skills in taking candid photos, then you can check out and use these tips to successfully take candid pictures.

candid-photo.jpg - Always bring your camera with you wherever you go. A good quality point-and-shoot camera will be quite handy as it is going to be easy to bring it with you because of its small size. If you always have your camera with you, you have more chances of capturing those spontaneous moments in life. At the same time, your family and friends are going to get used of seeing you with your camera so when they see you take their pictures they wouldn’t mind you at all and you’ll get to capture them in their unguarded moments. With your camera with you, you should be very observant of what is happening around you. You should literally point and then shoot whenever there is an opportunity for you to take candid photos in any situation.

- Avoid using your flash if possible. Sometimes a perfect moment gets spoiled when a flash goes off unexpectedly. If there’s not enough light you may open your camera’s aperture and increase its ISO. An ISO of 400 can help you capture quality candid images. If you have no choice but use a flash, remember not to use the red eye feature as it can be distracting as it creates multiple flashes before you take the picture.

- Learn to blend with the surroundings so as not to get obvious while taking a shot. You can hide your camera or place it by your waist instead of holding it near your eye when shooting. This trick allows you to take photos at a different angle as well.

- Use the telephoto lens of your camera when shooting at a good distance. Make sure you are not seen so your subject will act naturally as you take some candid shots. You may use the maximum zoom capacity of your camera if needed.

- Take pictures of people doing things like when they’re having a good laugh or when they’re busy doing something and aren’t focused on you taking their photos. This will make your candid photos more spontaneous and interesting. And if you wish to highlight the emotion of your subject’s face, then you may also convert the photo into a black and white image. Black and white images show more emotion and are more dramatic in effect.

- In order to avoid conflict and invasion of a person’s right to privacy, it will be safe to ask for your subject’s permission if appropriate.

- To increase your chances of taking a great shot, take advantage of your camera’s continuous shooting mode and shoot as many pictures as you can. Also, to create an emotion or story of a certain situation or occasion, try to take pictures of more than one person in one frame.

If you want to capture a great candid photo then you should experiment as often as you can and check out other people’s work for

The best way to capture a great candid picture is to experiment more often. Explore everything, try all angles, and don’t forget to see other’s work for some inspiration.