Better Holiday Images – Thoughts
Employ your best general photography practices:
- Be prepared:
- Have a freshly charged battery in your camera and a spare, freshly charged battery close at hand.
- Have a freshly formatted memory card in your camera and a spare, freshly formatted memory card close at hand.
- Remember your rules of thumb:
- E.g. Rule of thirds, leading lines, geometrical shapes, uncluttered backgrounds, etc.
- Creative techniques: e.g. zoom/blur on lights, macro rules, etc.
- Turn off your Flash (especially indoors):
- Raise your ISO (e.g. 800) if required.
- Use a tripod if possible.
- Set White Balance to Tungsten (use RAW if possible).
- For special cases requiring the lighting of shadowed faces use fill flash.
- For a larger number of guests you might consider a special corner pre-setup with good background, fixed lighting, tripod-mounted camera and remote control, where guests could go for pictures.
- Outside:
- Shoot at dusk, not when it is fully dark out. Look for a ‘night portrait’ setting on your camera, or expose for ambience and use ‘fill flash’.
- Look for reflections of coloured lights on wet surfaces, shiny metal surfaces, glass, etc.
- For daylight snow use exposure compensation to adjust for the darkening effect on your sensor. Adjust up for more light one or two stops.
- Shoot often:
- “The first 10,000 images are your worst”, said a famous photographer. There is still hope, but you must practise.
- Random shots can trump staged shots at parties and at gift-opening times.
Have a great holiday!!