Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Photography BabyHack: Use Continuous Shooting Mode to Guarantee Open Eyes

I just remembered something I heard a couple of years ago on Science Friday, one of the best shows (and podcasts!) on the radio for my money. It talked about one of the 2006 winners of the Ig Nobel Awards, which "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative -- and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology."

Among the 2006 winners was a team from Australia's CSIRO who calculated how many photos you need to take of a group of people in order to be sure to get one where nobody's got their eyes closed. Their rule-of-thumb conclusion: "for groups of less than 20: divide the number of people by three if there's good light and two if the light's bad."

The good news is that modern digital cameras (1) can take multiple shots for no extra cost, and (2) can usually take several shots very fast. So if you're shooting your kids in a group, just take a few extras. If your camera offers continuous shooting mode, all you'll have to do is keep the button pressed for extra exposures.

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