Festive photography with Manfrotto - the twelve tips of Christmas!

04/11/2013 Festive photography with Manfrotto - the twelve tips of Christmas!

With Christmas quickly approaching, many of us are looking forward to getting together with friends, family and loved ones and celebrating the end of a long year. And there's nothing quite like capturing those special moments with your camera so that you can cherish your Christmas memories forever. So we bring you a list of twelve tips to help you savour all your favourite festive moments with great shots this Christmas.

12 Christmas Pro Photo Tips

1. Make sure that you familiarise yourself with a new camera, especially in time for the holidays; an unfamiliar camera can take time to get to grips with, so get lots of practice before the holiday.

2. To get the perfect steadiness you need for that family photo, make sure you have a good tripod. The new and improved version of Manfrotto's PIXI mini tripod is a great choice small, strong and portable, you can take it along with you wherever you go for your Christmas dinner!

3. Christmas is a great time to get shots of you and your loved ones gathered together on the sofa. Once you have the right tripod, use the timer on your camera to make sure that you get in the photo as well a perfect picture to frame and put on the mantelpiece for years to come.

4. Lighting is often a photographer's worst nightmare. A direct flash produces red eye' and often creates harsh shadows within the image. To avoid this, a lighting aid like the Manfrotto LED LIGHT is a useful addition to your photo kit and is an easy, constant light source to illuminate group shots and low-light portraiture perfectly.

5. If you have decked the house out with sparkling Christmas lights, it's a good idea to shoot them on a tripod using a long, slow shutter speed at dusk. Shooting when it's not fully dark outside means you will end up with crisp images and a deep blue sky. Manfrotto's new 190 tripod series and 290 and Compact series tripods are an ideal solution to capturing some of your best shots.

6. If the children will be opening their presents in front of the fire, plan in advance what settings would work best in certain situations for example, having a scenic background will really help to bring out the moment.

7. What better to capture in a Christmas photo than a scene of snow? If you're lucky enough to have snow in your area, take care not to wash out the scene in your photo by forgetting to turn your flash off. A white winter wonderland is best captured without a flash.

8. If you want to capture scenes with a lot of movement, like the children at play, make use of your camera's high ISO setting and capture the atmosphere of spontaneity.

9. If you're an iPhone user you'll surely be interested in taking quick and easy snaps on your iPhone, particularly if you're going to be out on the town for the festive season. Consider picking up Manfrotto's KLYP (available for iPhone 4, 4s and 5) to carry in your back pocket or handbag. The KLYP case stays on your phone at all times, while the light on the snap-on adapter can be attached quickly when you need it and removed when you don't. Perfect for all you iPhonographers!

10. For the best picture, fill the frame. No matter how many megapixels your camera has, if you don't fill the frame you are really not getting the best from your camera.

11. Being camera-ready is important during the festive party season and it is very important to have a good protective bag to carry your camera in. Manfrotto recently released their new range of Pro Bags and Advanced Bags, ideal for the professional and more advanced photographers among you with lots of equipment to carry around. This way you will have full protection for your precious gear and be ready for everything.

12. Take various photos of you and your family throughout Christmas day, starting from first thing in the morning and ending with last thing at night, and put them together as a sort of montage mapping you your day played out hopefully with you all slumped on the sofa together full of turkey and mince pies!

For a full range of small and big Christmas Gift ideas just visit the Manfrotto Christmas Shop!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM MANFROTTO!

LINK:	http://www.manfrotto.co.uk/tips-for-taking-perfect-christmas-photos...
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