Photographing Fun

by Ken Hubbard

Summer & amusement parks seem to go hand in hand and it is often difficult to determine who is having the most fun – the parent or the child.

Photographer Ken Hubbard spent time recently capturing the energy and excitement of a family outing. Hubbard suggests fun, candid shots using several angles that retell the story of a special day.

"Part of creating an interesting, visual story is taking pictures in many different ways throughout the day. Don’t just stand and shoot. Get low to the ground or shoot from overhead.”

The camera lens that helped to chronicle this story was the Tamron AF28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 XR Di VC (Vibration Compensation) LD Aspherical (IF) Macro, an all-in-one lens that created beautiful wide angle shots as well as unique telephoto images. The perfect lens for any photographer is a light, easy to use lens with an expansive zoom like the VC that can stay on the camera throughout the day, ready to shoot at will and offer a vast array of focal lengths. The 28-300mm’s vibration compensation mechanism is an added bonus that takes the blur out of any hand-held shot and is exceptional for low-light photography.

A hole in one! The young boy intently looks on to see the outcome of his putt. “I wanted to capture the hole, the ball, and my subject in one in interesting shot,” says Hubbard.

In the image above, he got low to the ground to reflect the action. He used a focal length of 28mm, ISO 125, and an aperture of f/10 @115 sec. The child’s eyes and smile tell the whole story.

In any outdoor shot, the sun can often get in the way of a good photo. “On sunny days at an amusement park, you will always get hard shadows across your subject’s face or squinting eyes because they are looking directly at the sun.”

Hubbard minimized this challenge by finding a shaded area with soft, equal light. “In the case of the image below, I found a nice textured wall for a background and bamboo fencing that added to the picture and made it more interesting.”

Set your camera’s white balance to shady for photos out of the sun like this one or there will be a bluish cast to your image.”

Action! It is another byproduct of fun and often a difficult shot if your subject keeps moving. In the image below, the bumper boat is on the move, but it remains a crisp, clear image. In fact, the only suggestion of movement is in the mother’s hair.

"This is an example of capturing some action using higher shutter speeds. Since it was such a bright day, I was able to shoot at f/8 @ 350sec. Another place you will want to use very high shutter speeds is on the sports field; the faster the subject the faster the shutter speed.”