Everyone loves to take pictures during the holidays, but have you noticed that so many of those pictures are shot poorly, or are simply uninteresting? Here’s how to snap and share creative photos of your family and friends and take great shots of all your winter festivities.
Colorful Christmas lights are a natural subject for holiday pictures, but snapping these shots can be difficult. The best advice depends on what kind of shot you’re trying to get. Want a shot of a Christmas tree with all the ornaments and presents showing up clearly? Shoot during the day (with the tree lights on), and use your flash if you need additional light. Want to show off how fantastic the lighting is? Turn off the lights in the room and shoot at night, without the flash. The colorful lighting on the tree will show up like fireworks at night.
For shooting outdoor light displays, try taking shots before it gets too dark, just as the sun is going down. You’ll get better results if you can make out some of the features of the landscape or house. Don’t use the flash for these shots.
It’s never easy to get a good shot of your kids, and when you want to snap them looking their best in holiday attire it can be doubly difficult. Shoot early in the day—don’t wait until they’re tired and disheveled. Bend or kneel so you can shoot at eye level; shooting faces of kids or adults from above generally produces an unattractive portrait.
Holiday photos wouldn’t be the same without a festive background, of course, and many parents love to shoot their kids in front of the lit-up Christmas tree. This can cause problems in your photo, though, because the flash will wash out the lights behind your child.
Solution: Use the Slow Sync feature on your Samsung WB150F or DV300F camera. Slow Sync can be turned on in the flash settings, and it works by firing the flash while telling the camera to keep the lens open for extra time. This allows the camera to capture more of the details in the background of your shot while also keeping your subject perfectly lit. Be sure to use a tripod when using Slow Sync to avoid blurry pictures.
The best family photos are the ones that are jam-packed with family. Get everyone as close together as possible. You don’t want a lot of space between people. Don’t worry; you’ll get plenty of holiday ambiance in the shot no matter how tightly you pack everyone together. Shoot more pictures than you normally would. The larger the family, the more opportunity there will be for someone to blink and kids to look away from the lens.
Getting yourself in the shot is always tricky, so use the timer to give yourself 10 seconds to hustle into place. The Double timer setting on the WB150F tells the camera to take two shots in a row after the timer goes off, which will help you get extra shots without having to run back to the camera so often.
Food may look delicious to your eyes, but in photos it often comes across as flat and unappetizing. The best advice is to get your shots as soon as the food comes out of the oven and is plated. Don’t wait for everyone to sit down to start shooting. Meat sweats and vegetables wilt as soon as they start to change temperature. Get close and crop the shot as tightly as possible—you don’t need to see the entire plate to get the idea.
With a camera like the Samsung DV300F you can do more than just point and shoot to capture the perfect holiday photo. Use the Picture in Picture mode to capture a background, and then insert a smaller photo (or even a video) into the foreground. Presto: Holiday scenery plus personal close-up in a single image.
How about a shot of everyone in mid-air? Turn on the DV300F’s Jump Shot mode. The front-mounted LCD will start a countdown and tell everyone the exact time to leap into the air, capturing the image at just the right moment.
You’ve survived the holidays. Now prove it. Samsung Wi-Fi® enabled cameras let you share shots immediately and directly from your camera whenever you’re in range of a wireless network. These cameras will let you share pictures directly with friends on social networks like Facebook, send them to Microsoft® Skydrive® for online archiving, or transfer photos to a PC on your home network. You can even set up an impromptu slide show on your television with TV Link and Samsung AllShare Play, or send a photo to your Galaxy mobile device with the Samsung MobileLink app, available at the Google Play™ store.
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