Halloween Is Coming to Get You
- And of course you want to get some nice spooooky Halloween pictures, right? There is a wide range of subjects worth capturing - children trick-or-treating, Jack-o-Lanterns, people dressed out in more or less creative costumes (as in the picture here by “Bahman.“), and so on.
Much of the action happens after dark, which is the major challenge with Halloween photography.
1:St Halloween Photo Tip: Don’t Use Flash!
What? No flash? OK, I am not saying you should NEVER use flash for those Halloween-night shots - it might work if you do it right. What I’m thinking about is this mindless firing off of the built-in flash unit as soon as it gets a little bit dark… Often, a digital camera is pre-set to do this automatically when it detects that the ambient light is low, all due to the well-meaning intention from the camera manufacturer that people should NOT need to THINK!
What happens then is the Halloween atmosphere, which really is what you want to capture, is ruined. So what to do? Basically, I have covered that in a previous post about shooting in low light without flash, but I’ll repeat this in a nutshell.
- Use the highest ISO-setting the camera allows. This varies depending on how advanced your digicam is, but the higher the better. The pictures may come out a bit “grainy” but in this context it is OK.
- Find ways of supporting the camera on some solid object, or use a tripod. By doing that you can use very slow shutter speeds without getting blur due to camera shake.
Jack-o-Lanterns are tricky to get right. If you want to capture the effect in a night-shot, it is advisable to put two or three candles in it rather than just one.
The picture here by “orangeacid” is a rather successful example. Note that the highlights are very bright but not washed out. You may need to make several exposures at different settings to get it right.
Above all - have fun! Feel the special atmosphere. Go out and capture Halloween events from all different angles. For instance, try keeping the camera low and point it UP on people’s faces!
Happy Halloween!
