A lot of people asked me recently about photo tips for birthdays. It is actually not an easy task. So much effort goes into planning birthday parties for children; from making sure everyone’s got their invitations to organizing the entertainment and putting together suitable thank- you bags that often we forget to put any emphasis on the pictures. We have enough to worry about and often realize half an hour before the party that the camera battery is not even charged.

I put together some useful tips firs for both “green button pushers” and advance users.

Pre-Preparation
Make sure that you have a camera that works with a full battery and empty memory card.
Take 10 minutes ‘quite time’ to make a list of pictures you must have of the party. This will help not to be disappointed when you look back.
Check the location and take a couple of trial pictures to check light, setting and background.
Advanced:
Check if the natural light will give you sufficient shutter speed. Be careful kids will run around with full speed.
Check if flash is needed and try bounced flash options especially in small rooms.

Pre-party pictures:
Take a few pictures before the crowed is there. You can have great “preparation” pictures as well as pose some pictures with your children only. This will give you a chance to check the final lighting as well.
Advanced
This is a good opportunity to check your camera setting with the actual lighting. I always prefer to shoot with the natural light. In case of poor lighting go to a higher ISO. Personally I try not to go over 400 because the pictures will get too noisy. In the same time you might have to use small F-stop, which is fine, but you have to be aware that only one child will be in focus.

Candid Shots:
Children tend to pose for the camera, so go quietly with the camera not alerting them to the fact that you are about to click - this way that you can find those magical natural moments, these usually end up being the best shots.
Advanced:
Again, it is easier to catch great moments without flash. It is crucial to check the shutter speed in order to avoid camera shakes (or blurry kids running around). The general rule is not to have a shutter speed slower than 1 divided by the focal length of your lens. So let’s say you are shooting with an 80 mm lens (or 80 mm with your zoom), your shutter speed should be faster than 1/80 of a second.
Tripod: I personally find it impossible to use a tripod in a birthday party.

Flash:
Assuming that you will use the automatic mode, a lot of the pictures will be taken with automatic flash. On camera flashes can be very harsh on subjects that are close. An “easy fix” is to cover half of the flash with your figure. Just check on the LCD.
Advance:
I find it quite difficult to take natural pictures in a birthday party with flash. Always try to use bounced flash which will help to have more natural lighting. This works well with white wall, however with color walls you will have to correct the colors afterwards.

Ask a friend:
This can be very useful especially if you would like your whole family in a picture (which I did with this one). Ask a couple of days before the event and make it clear that it is not for the whole party!