Cameras for Kids
Ethan has always been interested in taking pictures, not surprising considering how often he sees his parents taking pictures. A couple years ago we decided to get him the Fisher Price Kid Tough digital camera. This camera looked perfect…two eye viewfinder, simple controls, and durable. Ethan was excited about his present and used it a lot that first day, but in the end it was a disappointment. Here are the problems with these kids cameras.
- Poor quality – The picture quality was horrendous. You can take better pictures with a cheap camera phone.
- Small internal memory – Ethan quickly used up the available memory with his pictures
- Postage stamp view screen – You can barely see the pictures on the view screen so are unable to determine if they are good or not (probably because they are all bad)
- Size – The large hand grips seemed like a good idea, but in truth this camera is way too big
- Battery Life – This camera chewed through the 4 AAs very quickly.
As a result Ethan never uses this camera anymore and it is on my eBay list. Instead, we’ve been increasingly letting Ethan use our point and shoot camera. He is very responsible with it and after you delete all the pictures that are either out of focus, washed out, or of someone’s butt we find some real gems. As parents our kid pictures are frequently from above looking down at them, so I find it fun to see pictures take from a child’s own perspective of the world. This plane photo is one Ethan took last Spring at an RC plane club open house. Great focus and great composition. There is something about it I really like.
I have also started bringing the camera whenever we go to a hockey game or baseball game. If Ethan or Ben start to get bored I give them our camera and they take pictures of the players and mascots. This is a great time to teach them how to use the zoom, video, and other features of the camera.
If you’re considering a camera for your son and daughter, I would caution against the kid cameras. Instead, take this as an opportunity to share your own camera and teach your kids camera skills and care.
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