Better Christmas Photos


One of the most frustrating things for people when taking photos during the holidays is how their photos turn out blurry (like the one above, which could have been better). Let's tackle this issue:

Blurry photos often comes because pictures are taken in poor lighting conditions for your camera. Despite what we see with our eyes, a camera cannot see in darker lighting situations as well, and to compensate, often times it will slow down your shutter speed to gather more light to its sensor. This results in blurry photos of any movement or of a shaky photographer. To remedy this, we need to figure out ways to make the camera see more light. Here are a few suggestions:

  • turn on more lights: the more light the camera has, the faster it can make it's shutter speed go to stop shakiness.
  • turn up your ISO to a higher setting: The ISO is a setting in the camera that controls how sensitive the camera is to light. If you can find this setting (read your manual), turning it to Auto ISO, or to a higher number such as 800 or 1600 can let it see better in darker places.
  • Use a tripod: Not always the best choice, since it requires fiddling with more equipment, but a tripod can help you steady your camera, which allows you to better hold it still with slower shutter speeds. It won't stop your subject from being blurry if they move, but it will keep you from camera shake.
  • Set your shutter speed manually: This would be the most daring of changes, because it means that your photos could turn out darker than you want. If you plan on doing this, I'd check out other places on this blog where we talk about manual settings and shutter speed.
Hopefully, one of those tips help. I would recommend practicing on those shots before you try it in a setting where you have people and situations that stress you out for getting it right the first time. If anyone has a question feel free to leave it in the comments. 


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