Why are good Christmas Candids so hard to Capture?

I am embarrassed to say that I pressed the shutter button nearly 200 times on Christmas day.  But I had to delete most of them.  No one requested that I delete any.  That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that many were just plain bad.  After deleting duplicates, I am now down to 60 or so that I feel I can share with my family.

It’s a bit frustrating to have so many failed images.  But as I write this, I’ve decided to give myself some slack because I don’t think getting good candids is an easy proposition.  Unlike my favorite genre, landscapes, each expression or action that would make a good candid capture is often so fleeting. A facial expression can change in a second!  

One of many failures.  I got half of it right (not considering the background)

Another thing is that the chances of a good result greatly decrease if there is more than one person in the photo.  The more people in the photo, the more likely there will be one yawning or blinking or putting a Christmas cookie in his or her mouth.  Also, the more people in the photo, the more likely one will be out of focus due to movement or being out of the depth of field.  

Another one of many failure, now deleted from my library

To keep my ISO as low as possible, each photo I took this year with the Olympus 12-40mm F2.8 lens was shot wide open.  I also used some fill flash. The next time, I think I’ll stop down one stop, to F4 and see what happens.  I’d like to come up with a default F-stop that would work for me, in most cases.  It’s been suggested that F5.6 might be a good choice, too.  (This is based on my m43 system with its 2x crop factor.)

This is what I am currently thinking might work for my taste:  Use F2.8 for one person. Use F4 for two people if they are more or less side by side. Use F5.6 for three or more people.... Yes, that will be my strategy next time!

All this being said, here are a few snapshots I like:

I don't mind the grandfather being out of the depth of field here.  At least he is smiling.
Also, it draws attention to the granddaughter

One Photo: An Abstract Christmas Tree

Here’s a fun photo idea for my friends who have Christmas trees. I thought I’d share this simple idea before it’s time to take down the tree. 

It will require finding the manual focus on your camera. We get so used to auto focus that sometimes we forget that our cameras can be focused manually. 

Here’s what I did. I sat on the couch in our living room, about 12 feet from the Christmas tree, which was lit with several strings of large bulbs. I held the camera in the vertical orientation. The lens was set at the largest aperture, F2.8. The lens used here was a 24-80mm (equivalent) zoom, and I zoomed to frame the image. 

Panasonic GX85 and Olympus 12-40mm @ 17mm (34mm equiv.)
1/30, F2.8, AutoISO800

At this point I switched to manual focus and focused the lens at its closest distance, somewhere around 12”.  Unfortunately this resulted in huge glowing light bulbs in the frame, and there was no hint of a tree. So, I re-focused repeatedly at gradually longer distances until I got the image I wanted. I’m guessing I might have been focusing at about the half-way point for this image. 

I posted this image on Instagram and Facebook last week, and it was well-liked. Some, including my wife, thought it might make a nice Christmas card. I think they might be right. 

A few Christmas Macros

A few Christmas Macros

During the winter months here in New England my cameras tend to sit on a shelf anxiously awaiting the colors of spring.  The exception might be a snapshot or two of snow covered mountains and valleys, captured while skiing. Indoors, I take pictures where I can.  That may mean food photography or family photos during Thanksgiving and Christmas. In addition, a few years ago while setting up the Christmas tree and getting the ornaments out, I found another fun way to use my camera. I noticed how beautiful some of the handmade Christmas ornaments were.  By setting them up one by one on a wooden table 5-10 feet from the tree I have been able to get some nice “macro” shots like these.  

E-M1 and Olympus 12-100 at 100mm at F4

This is actually a pop-up Christmas card.
Open up the card and this little paper village pops up!

Panasonic GX85 and Olympus 12-40 at 40mm at F2.8

I see that I used two different cameras and four different lenses for my growing collection of Christmas macros; the lenses being the Olympus 60mm, Olympus 12-40mm, Olympus 12-100mm and Panasonic 14-140mm.  But just about any lens will work. The idea is to fill the frame with the ornament, and the amount of blurriness in the background will depend on the F-stop used and on the distance between the ornament and the background.  I see that in all cases I used the widest aperture on each lens.

Olympus E-M1 and 60mm macro  at F2.8

Olympus E-M1 and Panasonic 14-140 at 46mm (92mm equiv) at F5.0

I also used an on-camera flash. I’m not talking about the flash that is built into the camera, but a separate flash that sits in the hot shoe and can rotate and articulate.  For these images I tilted the flash upward at an angle half way between horizontal and vertical, and then rotated the flash head sideways (90 degrees) to the left.  I could have chosen 90 degrees to the right, but most of the ambient light was already coming from the kitchen which was on the right.  

Olympus E-M1 and 60mm macro  at F2.8

Olympus E-M1 and Panasonic 14-140 at 40m (92mm equiv) at F4.7

To get the overall exposure correct, my standard (perhaps default is a better word) procedure is to adjust the exposure of the camera so that it is one-stop underexposed. For example if the correct exposure without a flash had been, say, 1/30sec, F4 and ISO1600, then I would set the camera to 1/30, F4, ISO800.  This is the equivalent of cutting the exposure (i.e. the light) in half.  After mounting and angling the flash, I’d adjust the flash power manually to provide the “missing” half of the light needed for a reasonable exposure. You’ll need to experiment to find the appropriate flash power level, as this depends on a number of variables, such as camera aperture, the height and color of the ceiling and the color of the walls from which light is being bounced.  Usually flashes can be adjusted to power levels of 1/128, 1/64, 1/32, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and 1/1 (full). Your subject isn’t going anywhere, so experimenting with flash settings is easy.

Olympus E-M1 and Panasonic 14-140 at 65m (130mm equiv) at F5.3

Olympus E-M1 and 60mm macro  at F2.8

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