Five tips for great holiday pics
Take your best photos yet with our helpful hints
By André Demers
The family is gathered. The children are smiling. The presents are stacked. The tree looks stunning. Before you lies the perfect holiday moment. A photo like this will surely be framed and displayed atop the mantel.
Click. Flash. Beep. Oops. Start over. Smiles become forced, the kids scatter and wrapping paper dangles from the tree. The moment
is . . . gone.
Nadisha Hosein, a software project leader from Montreal, knows the feeling all too well. “Look at these!” she groans, as she scrolls through photos of a recent family gathering. Her monitor displays silhouettes, blurs of action and hazy shapes in a seemingly unlit room. “What do I do with them?”
Robert Innes, a photography expert in Montreal, has sold hundreds of digital cameras. He has also seen what happens after the fact, when customers come in groaning about their images. “People want all of their pictures to be perfect,” he explains. “Even though today’s digital cameras are much easier to use, you still have to know some basics.”
Innes says most digital cameras include a handful of features that are invaluable in certain settings — such as holiday gatherings.
Quick photo hints
- Always use flash indoors — it can make the difference between a great shot and a blackened blur. Hint: Know your flash’s limit, especially when zooming. Most flashes work best at two-to-three metres.
- Set the camera to its highest resolution. A low-resolution image is fine for e-mailing, but not if you want to print your photos.
- Activate red-eye reduction (usually a button or alternate flash setting), which works by emitting several pre-flashes so pupils dilate. Hint: Prepare people for multiple flashes so they don’t look away after the first burst.
- Turn on the night shot feature — which lengthens the time the shutter is open — with the flash to capture the warmth of holiday lights or candles in the background. Hint: Use a tripod with the night shot feature to prevent light blur.
- Use the fast shutter speed of action or sport mode to freeze the blur of excitement as kids shred wrapping paper and play with their shiny new toys.
Little extras
Consider these stocking stuffers in your quest for the perfect holiday shot.
A mini-tripod. Use it to steady the camera and increase sharpness when photographing a large group of people.
A large memory card. Because you can never take too many pictures.
A photo lab gift certificate. It’s a quick and inexpensive way to get dozens of prints without emptying your home printer’s ink cartridge.
