We all want to capture beautiful holiday photos, but the hustle and bustle of December can make it difficult.
Avoid these common issues to capture better photos during your holiday season.
Blurry Photos
We’ve all taken them. The moment is so beautiful but your photo is a blurry mess. The low lights of Christmas time lead to slow shutter speeds and blurred images. Don’t be fooled into believing you can take a great photo just because your camera’s shutter will click.
Solution:
- Find or create more light. You’ve got to have it for photography. Think flash, room lights, or lots of twinkly lights.
- Raise your ISO
- Open up your aperture. It is a great time to ask Santa for a 50mm 1.8 lens so you can let more light in.
- Watch your shutter speed.
- Spot meter. My go to low light method.
Ugly Yellow Photos
The scene looks beautiful to you, but your photo is a yellow weird mess. The variety of indoor lights during the holidays can create strange colors in your photos, proving once again that what you see is not what the camera sees.
Solution:
- Adjust your white balance to Tungsten. With the variety of lights in most of our homes, you may also want to play with the white balance setting to find the one that works best for you.
- Shoot in RAW and adjust your white balance in post processing.
Uncooperative Subjects
You’ve found the background you want. You know your settings are right. You’ve thought it through. Then you add your subjects and chaos ensues! Yep, it’s holiday photo time. I’m always amazed how a perfectly lovely family can transform themselves into monsters when the camera comes out.
Solution:
- Make it fast and easy. I find the less fuss, direction, and time I take, the easier photos are.
- Think about what is in it for them to cooperate with you. Older kids you might offer a photo for facebook or cash. Younger kids offer treats.
- Ask someone non-related to photograph your family if possible. Most family members are better behaved in front of someone else. Most. Not all.
- Go candid. If all else fails, just sneak the shots when you can. They are more natural and fun anyway.
Grey Snow
Your camera reads the bright snow and says WOW, that’s a lot of light and underexposes, giving you ugly grey snow and under exposed subjects.
Solution:
- Overexpose 1 stop. It seems counter-intuitive, but it works.
- If your point and shoot has it, use the snow setting.
Boring Photos
Do your photos seems boring compared to other people’s? There is usually one big issue in boring photos. Too much going on in the frame.
Solution:
- Pick a strong, interesting subject to focus on.
- Avoid too much going on in the background of your photo.
- Move closer to your subjects. Don’t be afraid to fill the frame.
- Find a different angle.
And my last piece of holiday photo advice…
Avoid comparing. Okay, you know I had to say it. Our home decor is different. Our lighting is different. Our subjects are different.
Embrace your REAL self this holiday. My house is not decorated to Pinterest or Martha standards. My family won’t be wearing coordinated Gap clothing. My kitchen wall has a giant hole in it. My house is a construction zone.
That is my REAL. I’m good with that.
What is your holiday photo frustration? I’d love to hear in the comments below.
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Fabulous hints! Because my house is NEVER good and my picture are ALWAYS yellow! With the snow thing, since I’m point & shoot and don’t even know if I have a snow setting, I find using levels fixes that right up. But I do like knowing how to PREVENT the things that Photoshop fixes so well – much easier. I can’t wait to see if I have a tungsten setting because my pix are ALWAYS yellow!! Thanks!
Oh, and ummm, can I request that you post a pic of the hole in your kitchen wall? You know, just to make the rest of us feel more comfortable and less self-conscious? (hehe, and cuz I wanna see a hole in the wall)
Thanks for always awesome stuff!!!!
Certainly will post a picture of the hole in my wall! It’s lovely
“Embrace your real self.” Best. Advice. Ever.
Great Post! I am loving all that great advice. The yellow lighting, blurry photos, & boring pics are all my top issues. Another one is when I use my meter guides (the green numbers you see when you look inside the viewfinder) outside it works great. But when I try and use it indoors somewhere it doesn’t work that well. Is there a trick to that…..lighting or adjusting ISO BEFORE you adjust metering maybe?
When shooting in manual and using your meter, be really careful about where you point your lens to get your reading. It makes all the difference in the world.
These posts might help you some,
http://thedailydigi.com/whats-that-little-line-thingy/
http://thedailydigi.com/whats-that-little-line-thingy-part-2/
Wonderful post!!! Thanks for all your solutions to these “that always happens to me” photo problems!
Love your last bit of advice about not comparing. My goal this year is to think about my December photos and try to get some interesting ones that look good. But, I have to remind myself that if I don’, I’ll still have decent shots of our life and what we were like this year. Priceless, really. Plus, some year I’m going to nail this Christmas photo thing and will be able to look back and appreciate the progress I (hopefully) have made!
My question of the day…My husband just got me my 1st dslr. I decided I’m going to go straight to manual otherwise I know I’ll get stuck on auto. Last night we hung our wreath outside so I decided to practice, shots were ok. After being inside for a bit, I wanted to snap a picture of my daughter engrossed in her ipod. I couldn’t figure out the settings and the moment was gone! I think part of the issue was that one room has yellow/goldish undertone walls and room next to it has red walls. I’m going to keep playing w/ my settings because those are the rooms that we are in alot. When I use auto they seem to come out fine. But my main question is how are you able to quickly adjust settings for that “spur of the moment” picture when maybe you were outside then inside or one room vs. another? Alot of my pics are everyday pics that aren’t poses but sometimes just a sneak at our life, kids and dogs snuggling etc. thank you for any advice.
Practice! Lots of practice. It really does get faster and easier.
I always recommend to start with Aperture Priority Mode (AV or A) until you begin to really understand how the aperture/shutter speed/ISO are working together and then go all the way to Manual.
This post can help you a bit.
http://thedailydigi.com/understanding-aperture/
My biggest frustration is getting myself in the picture. I use back button focus and that is hard for the husband and kids to understand. Plus I have to drag out the tripod and use the self-timer, not greating great shots of myself. I’m always jacked up looking somehow, or I don’t have the camera in the best position. We have a smaller house and my 50mm can barely squeeze it in. Small, huh?
That is small, but doable.
Consider placing your tripod in a hallway so you get a little longer space or even opening your front door and placing it outside and you in.
I taught my hubby how to press this button and then this one, so he could use back button focus. I didn’t call it anything other than, this button and then this one. It helps!
Watch CaptureYour365 next year for some tips that might help you even more!
Oh…and you might want to ask Santa for a remote shutter release! It’s so fun and gives you a lot more control of how you look so you avoid that “jacked up” look
When I want a whole family photo, all 15 of us, we have to have 3 rows otherwise the photo would go too wide. The people in the back row always turn out dark and a little blurred as well. I have worked with the lighting and it is very difficult to solve this problem.
This is a tricky one!
Keep your shutter speed above 1/125th of a second to stop any blur. If you have a tripod I’d recommend using it for such a large group in a darker situation.
Turn on as many lights as you can just to get more light on your subjects.
If you don’t have an external flash, it might be a great thing to ask Santa for so you can get more light on your subjects.
Plus if you are using auto settings, put on landscape because that does focus on all areas at once. But lots of light, too, with that.