How to take nice photos at Christmas

Christmas is a great time to take photos, the lights, decorations, family and friends and of course the food all make for great subjects when taking photos.

Here are a few tips for taking photos at Christmas.

Use natural light

Wherever possible use natural light, this might be the light from Christmas lights or the natural sun light. Most of the time there will be enough light around that you won't need to use a flash, you may need to change your camera settings.

I've personally found that the Christmas lights create enough light and give a lovely warm or moody atmosphere to a photo.

Get close

Get close and personal, get in close to your subject. For example Instead of taking a photo of a whole Christmas tree, focus in on the decorations and ornaments, using a low aperture or f-stop to create a nice blurred background whilst keeping your decorations in focus. The same can be said for Christmas portraits, have someone sit in front of the tree or some lights, keeping your aperture low and keeping them in focus.

Keep your aperture low

Keep your aperture or f-stop low if you have a lens that is capable of it, as mentioned previously this will allow you to create some nice blurred backgrounds and keep your main subject in focus. This works especially well at Christmas with all the colours and lights around!

Why not use props?

If you plan on taking photos of your friends or family, you could use props, even something simple like a Santa hat or a holiday themed outfit could create that lovely Christmassy photo.

What about the low light?

If you're in a low light setting, you could always increase your ISO, just a beware that if some cases you may end up of grainy photos which no one wants. So try and keep that balance of quality and enough light. You could always take a few photos at different ISOs and then edit them later!

There you have it, 5 simple tips for helping you take some nice photos at Christmas!

Hope you all have a happy Christmas, from us at Snaphints!