How to Capture a Carousel Image

Courtney Slazinik harnesses the motion of the merry-go-round with her Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD lens.

Article By Jennifer Gidman

Images by Courtney Slazinik

A trip to the St. Louis Zoo with her two older daughters gave Slazinik the perfect chance to add another memorable moment to the family album: a ride on the Mary Ann Lee Conservation Carousel, one of the zoo's newest attractions. The colorful carousel features 64 hand-carved wooden animals representing the protected and endangered species at the zoo, and all ticket sales from the ride go to the zoo's WildCare Institute.

The girls' turn on the carousel also gave Slazinik the opportunity to put her Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD lens to the test. "I love the versatility of the 18-270," she says. "To have a lens on my camera that can cover that range is insane, and I never take off the Vibration Compensation. Plus it's so lightweight, which is nice when I'm out with the kids. My bag is heavy enough with my camera, wallet, and all the stuff I need for the girls!"

Slazinik shot the image featured here as her daughters took a twirl. Her tips for merry-go-round imagery will help you nail that elusive shot of your kids on this popular amusement park ride as it makes its rounds.

Position yourself - and the kids - in an optimal location.
Try and get yourself to a spot where people aren't obstructing your view. If you're standing behind someone and they move, there goes your shot. For this photo, I was between 12 and 15 feet from the carousel. It wasn't very crowded, so I was able to stand right at the fence and shoot. As for the kids, have them sit on the outside portion of the merry-go-round. My kids were pleading to sit on the inside animals, but I wouldn't have been able to take their pictures if they had done that.

Adjust your shutter speed for the merry-go-round's motion.
We had been to the same carousel a year before, and when I tried to take pictures of it back then, they were terrible because I had my shutter speed too low. The first time around, I was shooting at about 1/20th of a second, which I had always read was a good place to start - but with the speed of the merry-go-round, that didn't work and I missed them all. This time I was ready: I set the shutter speed at 1/25th initially so I could catch a couple of really clear shots of my daughter on the ride. Then I started playing with the shutter speed and found that 1/50th of a second worked best.

Prepare your other settings.
It was around noon, but we were in a nice, shaded area, so there was no harsh sun I had to worry about. I used spot metering and exposed off of my daughter first, keeping my ISO as low as possible. The aperture was set with the focal length - I was at 21mm, so the lens let me shoot at F/5.0.

Steady yourself.
I didn't have a tripod, but I wanted to minimize the camera shake while I was panning, so I just set myself up like a tripod: I locked my elbows with my arms close to my sides and my feet slightly apart. I held my breath, too!

Pan with your subject.
Once the ride started, I kept my camera to my face the whole time and had my husband give me a heads-up when my one daughter was coming. That way, I was able to just keep the camera there until I could see her come in the viewfinder. Then, using back-button focusing (which separates the autofocus from the shutter button), I locked focus on her face and slowly moved with her as I was taking the picture. I just pivoted my chest, not my feet or anything else. You want to move your camera, but nothing else, with your subject so that your subject is sharp but your background is blurry.

Keep shooting as the carousel goes 'round and 'round.
You need lots of patience to eventually get a shot like this. My daughter went around four times before I got this image, plus my other daughter was on another animal, so I had about eight practice shots before I got this one.

Practice before you even visit the carousel.
The trick is to experiment with your shutter speeds and panning before you even head to the park or zoo. I'll take my kids to the playground on their scooters or bikes and have them just ride back and forth past me. I've seen some people practice with their animals, maybe throwing a ball and letting a dog chase after it - anything you can do to practice capturing that motion in front of your camera.

To see more of Slazinik's images, go to her Click It Up a Notch blog.