boshon1

Get yourself a nice long lens, most will allow focusing within inches and when your daughter gets older and is playing with friends you'll be able to shoot her close even though she's far away. A good long lens is a valuable piece in any photographers bag.

butterflygirl77nc Loc: North Carolina

Ha ha. I'm not old enough to not have one of those phones! Lol. I do have a Samsung Galaxy II. I took a picture of her with it today. It doesn't have nearly the quality my d7k has! But it will do and I nearly always have it in reach!!

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

My wife uses a new little Panasonic Lumix $125 P&S I got her from WalMart for Christmas. It is 12MP CMOS sensor with a Leica-branded 4X lens which is very crisp. She holds it at arms length while holding our toddler and takes portraits of the two of them which turn out great every time. No fisheye effect at all, quite good low light operation, easy to just flip it on and shoot, and the auto focus is very fast. I believe it's 11mm when fully retracted but it's also a tiny P&S sensor that uses that focal length to equal a full-frame 50mm view of things.

Thus it would seem that 35mm would be about right for a crop sensor dSLR, assuming that's what you currently have. I'd go to a camera store and try 35 and 40mm first, or at the least rent one or borrow one, to make sure. I'm surprised you don't already have a kit zoom that goes down to 18mm.

The other option would be to get a $125 Panasonic Lumix P&S like ours and forget it. Then when you accidentally drop the camera from holding it with one hand and holding your little girl with the other (been there, done that), or she knocks it out of your hand accidentally as she runs head on into you, or she grabs it from wherever you sat it for "just a moment" and dashes it on the floor (been there, done that twice), you will either have a $125 appreciation for Panasonic durability or only $125 will go in the garbage bag.

Sometimes a dSLR just isn't optimum for a situation - like a beach where there's sand to get into your lens bearing surfaces or inside your camera if you take the lens off to swap it. This may be another one of those situations.

Marc-Wi Loc: Oshkosh Wi

You have a 35-105, surely you can find an appropriate length in there somewhere.

Crwiwy Loc: Devon UK

A standard kit lens will usually focus to a about 3 inches - how close do you want?

To take a non-distorted picture you need to use a longer focal length - greater than 50mm (35mm equivalent) - and get away from the subject.

saxkiwi Loc: New Zealand

No don't go for a point and shoot like some here are saying. The problem you have with P+S cameras is shutter lag. Your DSLR is instant once you've hit the shutter but a P+S takes a second or so before it fires..very frustrating for shooting moving kids. You'll miss those one in a hundred or thousand shots.

Loudbri Loc: Philadelphia

I struggle with this myself on family shoots. after the kids warm up to me they do the same thing as soon as you put the camera up they move toward you. I've learned that one must use a higher than normal shutter speed, and AIfocus, because toddlers don't stand still at all. Then you basically have to trick them into doing the cute thing a few feet away. it basically turns into a game of fetch where one throws toys a distance away, then when they get close fall on your back and hold them back with your feet they usually think this is great and one gets the giggle faces etc. yes I really do this

coco1964 Loc: Winsted Mn

Now take the photo and do a little PP work on it and it should look very nice. Here is one my daughter took of my great grand-daughter---not as good as a D7000 but certainly a nice snapshot.............

Baby Jaelyn

butterflygirl77nc Loc: North Carolina

With my 35-105 I have to be 4' away to achieve focus. That's the problem with it, my 70-300 vr is approximately 4' as well and my 85 is around 3'.

butterflygirl77nc Loc: North Carolina

She is extremely ADORABLE! I've taken a lot of pictures with my Galaxy, I'll sere what I can do to improve them with Photoshop :) thanks!

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

Shutter lag is dependent on the camera brand. We had a Canon and it was terrible about that (as you said, a second or so) giving about 4 or 5 out of 10 blurry shots from movement and terrible low light operation. That's why she wanted another Lumix (had two in the past). This Lumix shoots virtually instantly if you don't use face recognition. She hasn't had a single blurred photo in 2 1/2 months.

Pentony Loc: Earth Traveller

I enjoyed all the suggestions and comments. There was one comment about using a 60 mm macro lens but no followup comment(s) on doing that.

What are the pros and cons of using a macro/micro lens :?: :roll:

butterflygirl77nc Loc: North Carolina

I think everyone is saying I could get close enough with a macro (like the 60 or the 40 that I'm drooling over) but it would distort her face. I'm going to go to a camera shop and try the lenses they have to see what happens, then I'll make my decisions based that. In the meantime I'm using my Android phone.