Thread: taking halloween photos

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I have my yard haunt set up and would love to take some professional looking photos with out a professional camera.

Last night I set up my tripod, took some shots on several different settings. All but one photo turned out looking like crap. In the past I have had camera to come right out of the box that took awesome pics day and night. This camera that I am using now, takes horrible pics in my OP.

So if there are any photographers here, would you teach me how to take a great night shot of my haunt, I would like to post photos here on this thread of the different ways that I achieved the best photo.

Anyone else want to also learn and post feel free.

One of the problems I may be having is not enough light on the tombstones when not using flash. I would like the picture to feel creepy, not that I am looking at a fake tombstone.

(sorry for rambling, just frustrated)

I get frustrated with my pictures too because my house & decor always looks sooooo much better in person than in the pictures that I take.

I have a $2,000.00 camera. and it to sometimes takes crappy pics.... wrong setting, movement (blurring) best thing I can suggest which you said is a tri-pod and a longer exposure time (it needs to gather the light) this by no means is all the answers but it will at least get you going. Let me know if I can help other then coming and taking the pics...... and if I could I would!!
Here is my photo link Sleepy Hollow Photography

Tri-pod and the [Night Landscape] setting with no flash works for me. Of course it took me about two weeks to figure that out. LOL Without a tri-pod, I'd be doomed for sure because of the long exposure needed.

I got my first SLR camera this year (yay!) and I'm super happy with the night photos. I had a point and shoot last year and with so few manual settings, could not get the proper exposure for those really dark areas of my haunt.

I've already taken night pictures this year and know that this Halloween should be a great photo year. My biggest advice would be to stay away from the automatic settings if your camera allows it. I shoot everything in the full-manual mode which allows me to adjust shutter speed, aperture, etc, etc. and once I find the settings, it's a half-second adjustment when I move from dark areas to lighter and back again.

I dont know what camera you have, but a tripod is your best friend for night photos (even with my SLR of course). Take longer exposures like creepy said. Be patient and practice taking pictures at night BEFORE Halloween so you aren't spending/wasting time on the big night to adjust things.

PS - I've also purchased a remote for my camera ($5) which allows me not to touch the camera at all -- in that same note... use the time delay!! Set it for 2 or 3 seconds (whatever your camera allows), press the button and walk away... Remember that any time you are touching the camera when you take a picture, there will be some movement (pressing the shutter moves the camera, even your heart beat and breathing affect it)

PSS - 98% of the time I don't use the flash

Originally Posted by msmello

Tri-pod and the [Night Landscape] setting with no flash works for me. Of course it took me about two weeks to figure that out. LOL Without a tri-pod, I'd be doomed for sure because of the long exposure needed.

Yep tripod, no flash, and night scape. Resting on a solid surface works too if not too windy, and set it for self-pic delayed timer and walk away. If your digi says (and mine does at around 400 bucks) the lowest aperture is 2.7 which is pretty low. Anything below 60 results in blur from hand shake.

The only thing I'ld add to the no flash/tripod/nightscape would be to adjust the ISO/ASA setting as high as it will go (if your camera allows).

Adjusting the exposure lengths down (some camera features) can be a great help, as well:

Standard setting, looks too crappy thanks to the fog + lights:


With setting turned the exposure down to -2.0 (still too much light from the torches because my light meter was set to center, but that's getting awful detailed):




Light meter settings, as mentioned, can have dramatic effects on night pictures. So, if your camera has those, you very generally want to set the light meter to favor the area of the pic the brightest light is coming from. There are excepetions to that, mostly for style, however.

Above all, take TONS of pictures. If you have a digital SLR, auto bracket the F stops on all pics (one over and one under the auto detect, it's a setting on most slr's). The nice thing about digital is you can always delete.

I need to spend sometime messing with mine too. My Aunt bought me a $1000.00 camera that sat in the box for a year cause I did not have time to read how to operate it. She bought it for me to take pictures for my commercial site. The next year when my family came to visit they were freaked that the camera was still in the box. So we got it out & my cousins kid showed me the basics of operating it.

My career in life was in photofinishing so ya would think I could operate one of these things....nope!! Its a SLR too & I just point & shoot. Now I've misplaced the book to it so I'm really in trouble. But all the pictures I take come out beautiful. Only last year I went to Spookzilla's house at night to shoot pictures of his display & it was so dark my camera would not take the pictures & I was clueless what to do.

So hey a class in here on picture taking procedures or a section where we could always go & ask questions about taking night photos & such would be right up my alley!!

the Muffster

Unfortunately, most digital cameras lack a manual exposure mode, which would make this a breeze. I'd suggest adding a polarizer (to cut flare from your lights) and using a tripod.

In the days of film cameras, I'd walk around taking ambient light readings at various spots, average them to get +/- 1 stops from high to low by tossing in additional lighting (slave flashes or floods), and then shoot the shot using whatever f stop would allow me the depth of field that I wanted to achieve. Most color films had a +1 stop over exposure and -1/2 stop underexposure lattitude where you could keep a good image without starting to lose details. By keeping everything +/- 1 stop, you'd get a nice pic without blocked-up lowlights and washed-out highlights. Digitals tend to have a greater lattitude, but I'm not sure how wide it is, because of the preponderance of photoshop usage and the over-emphysis on eye-popping colors.

Craig

Yeah, I'm still struggling to learn this digital stuff as well. Things that SHOULD work with the old film just look crap on digital, and things that would have been a disaster on film look great in digital. Doesn't help that my DSLR is outdated and busted, either, but I can't get my wife's point and shoot digital to work properly in certain instances either.