Taking Great Digital Vacation Pictures

You've managed to take some pretty great pictures by just pointing and shooting, but imagine what you could do with a continuous-shot function. Or a panorama lens. Or a red-eye reducer. Before you leave, Google your camera's user guide and read up on all of the cool bells and whistles it may have so that when you're faced with a gorgeous beach sunset or writhing, wiggling kids, you'll know exactly how to get a fabulous shot.

You may be surprised by what those creative geniuses you call your kids can come up with. Give each of your kids a disposable camera and challenge them to find (and shoot) the biggest buildings/most gorgeous flowers/funniest sight or biggest iguana they can find.

Saying "cheeeese" can make smiles, well, cheesy. Instead, have your kids say "Monkey," which forces kids to purse their lips before saying the long "eeee" sound, which will make their smiles look a little more natural.

A little lesson in photography angles: If you crouch down and shoot upward, the objects in the foreground of your picture will appear larger. Likewise, if you stand on something tall and shoot down, the objects in the foreground will appear smaller. So, if you want to take a picture of, say, your family standing in front of a national-park sign, you may want to crouch down so that you'll be able to see your kids beaming faces more clearly. Similarly, if your man is taking a shot of you standing in front of a waterfall, you may want to have him hop up on a chair to avoid that whole 10-pounds-heavier-in-photos thing.

It'd be great if the kids were all posed with perfect blissful vacation grins in front of every monument, but that's just not going to happen. Instead, forget about the posing, straightening and retaking and instead focus on shooting real-life shots of your family having fun—regardless of whether or not your kid has chocolate ice cream dripping off of his chin.