Halloween photography tips at home

As October nears to a close with Halloween approaching, this is a wonderful time of year, as homes exteriors are lit up with some cool Halloween decorations, like carved pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns and scary decorations adorned with fake blood. This is an enjoyable time of the year with the rustic settings of fall to host a wonderful Halloween themed party. Setting up your Halloween party should be a fun experience, and something that you can DIY. Between scary Halloween costumes, to trick-or-treating and several different types of Halloween themed scenery, you can get tremendous Halloween images in your photoshoot. With some provided Halloween photo tips and Halloween photography ideas, you won’t feel daunted by the task of taking Halloween photography.

Beginning with a good camera, whether it be a DSLR, film camera or point and shoot camera, with the right photography equipment and Halloween photoshoot ideas, you will have an easy time capturing great Halloween photos.

Displaying those spooky photos taken during your Halloween party, you can share them on social media and  your family, friends and colleagues will love your exposures. Say you are shooting with a light source such as ambient lighting or natural light, you may find this as a harsher lighting condition from lights such as porch lights, property lights and general low light found in the evening when trick or treating. We will explore the best way to handle this. However, in short, make sure that in these photography situations, you are using a long exposure which will allow for more light to hit your camera’s sensor.

It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner in the world of photography, or even a professional landscape photographer, or vlogger and content creator, Halloween can make for the perfect time to show off a great vlog session, detailing the landscape. You can always edit your spooky Halloween photos in post processing with software like Lightroom and Photoshop. Once, you have completed your post processing and you are satisfied with your final image, feel free to upload it to your social media site of choice. With the proper camera settings, your subscribers will love the creative content that will shine through in your exposure.

As part of our discussion on Halloween photography tips, we will see that setting up your camera correctly is also crucial to getting better photos. You can choose to shoot in autofocus mode or manual mode which will give you more intricate control over all the camera settings and presets.

If you happen to be using a slow shutter speed, you should see that motion blur which will add to the spookiness of fast-moving scenes. You should also have your ISO and aperture set for the scene in which you are shooting. You may want a faster shutter speed to get those detailed and sharp exposures, especially if you are a shooting portrait photography such as your family all huddled together decked out in their Halloween costumes.

So how do you get those fantastic pics this Halloween? Let’s explore some different Halloween photography tips and tutorials, plus items to start with that will get you better Halloween pictures.

Halloween Photography Tutorials

Let’s begin with some Halloween photography ideas that will help you get those great Halloween photos at home.

Beginning Steps

The first thing you want to do when setting up for a Halloween photoshoot is find a great location to take some spooky photos. We have found that places like abandoned buildings make for great scary Halloween photos. Especially when these are taken at night. Remember to shoot your photos with a wide aperture in a setting like this, because this will usually be a darker lit setting and you want as much light as you can get to hit your camera’s sensor, which shooting in a wide aperture will help with.

Try and take some great Halloween photos of the still life scary decorations like a ghost possibly dripping with gels containing fake blood. You can also shoot these in black and white which add a level of spookiness to the photoshoot with spooky silhouettes visible.

You can add some smoke bombs to the Halloween decorations, like the inside of a jack-o-lantern, that you are photographing. Besides for the spooky imagery of the still life decorations, adding some smoke effect to it would really set your photos apart.

Try shooting your Halloween photography during the blue hour for a haunting effect. The Blue Hour is the hour right before sunrise and immediately after sunset. This will give a great spooky effect to your exposures.

It can never hurt to add some photos of a pumpkin patch. After all this is Halloween and one of the first items associated with the holiday are pumpkins. You may find one where someone has set up a scarecrow for the extra Halloween effect. Try and grab photos of those as well (they would be included in the still life photos), and hopefully those spooky scarecrows dripping with fake blood should really enhance your Halloween photos.

If you are shooting a Halloween party at your home, you want as much Halloween themed items showing. One of the things we recommend is having your family, loved ones and even guests show up with some cool costume ideas. These must have photos to really grab the Halloween scene in your photoshoot and will show up great on social media.

Camera presets and settings

Having the right tutorials to set up your Halloween photoshoot and Halloween themed party is great, but what are the next steps to setting up your camera to get the best spooky photos, as you may be faced with different photography scenarios.

Begin by setting your camera to a slow shutter speed for a long exposure. As you will most likely be shooting Halloween photography and videos during low light conditions at night, using a slow shutter speed will allow for more light to enter the frame.

When there is a lack of natural light or ambient light, you may have to add some additional lighting sources for a more detailed and sharp exposure. Your built in camera flash alone may not provide for enough of a light source when ambient light is not available. The light from the flash will most likely start to fizzle out after your camera is 10-15 feet from your subject or object.

Set your camera to shoot some fantastic black and white scenes. The chilling and spooky effect from this is perfect for Halloween. As we mentioned before the benefits of shooting in black and white and creating that blur and silhouettes that will send shivers up the spines of the people viewing your cool, spooky Halloween photos.

While setting things like the white balance, aperture and exposure settings on the camera. There are several different presets such as auto, daylight, cloudy and custom settings as well. Autofocus will help especially for beginners to get the right camera settings for your lighting conditions.

Remember to take Use a high ISO when shooting at night. An ISO of about 1600 is usually the max ISO you will get before any noise degradation of exposure is visible. This is needed to add light to a low light shooting situation.

We always love recommending giving manual mode a try in photography. There is no questioning the ease of use of autofocus, however, shooting in manual mode (which most professional photographers do) will give you more control over the different camera settings and adjust them according to your scene.

In addition to having a great camera for all of your Halloween photos, you want to make sure that you have a great lens to pair with your camera.

An if you are enjoying this Halloween with a great Halloween party at your home, you want to ensure that your guests have all the refreshments they need. The KitchenAid Stand Mixer, is a great way for you to prepare some delicious Halloween themed food like cookies with ghosts and other decorations on them. Your guests will love enjoying a party with cool costume ideas and great food to accompany them.

Photography Equipment

Now that you have a good idea of where to start when planning your Halloween themed party, you need to have the right equipment to take those wonderful spooky Halloween photos.

Cameras

One of the first cameras we like to recommend for your Halloween party is the Fujifilm Instax Mini 40. This film camera offers a unique retro design and build while still being extremely ergonomic.

This cool film camera was made with taking easy selfies, which comes in handy when taking selfies at this year’s Halloween party with your loved ones and guests. Fujifilm’s proprietary built in selfie lens, it’s as simple as depressing the shutter in Selfie mode.

This camera is extremely simplistic to use. With a short quick twist of the lens to turn on the camera and then you can twist it again to get a close-up mode of your subject. Depress the shutter button for a quick release, and your images will be taken quickly and accurately.

Having this great camera is especially helpful for beginners looking to take quick and easy film printed photos. The cameras autofocus will automatically adjust to ambient light, and make the necessary adjustments to the shutter speed, flash brightness and other settings, leaving you to concentrate on the subject in your photography.

Fuji pairs this camera with the features found on Instax Up app from Fuji. So, get ready to put your spooky and scary Halloween photos on social media and elicit a fright of delight from your viewers. The app also offers some additional features as well including post processing.

With the Instax instant Film your instant image printing can make for exposures which will look great in a photography book. So, once that is complete, you will have a great coffee table book filled with Halloween themed photos of your Halloween party.

Option #2

Our second camera option is the wonderful Sony Alpha ZV-E10 Interchangeable Lens Mirrorless Vlog Camera w/ 16-50mm Lens. This is a great DSLR camera that will showcase the Halloween themed photos you take including ones at your Halloween party. Here are some of the features we love about this camera:

There is an extremely powerful in camera BIONZ XR image processing engine, which lets the camera get 4K HDR images at 60FPS even in harsh lighting conditions.

There is a 3” LCD flip out touchscreen EVF viewfinder making it even easier to focus and see your shooting area and subjects. If you so desire, the EVF can be used when shooting vertically as well as horizontally making it almost a gimbal type of operation. This means you should be able to get the shot you want from most angles of view. There is also a Creative Look option on this camera, which gives the user 10 image presets to choose from, or you can always customize your own as well. So, you can easily find the right camera preset for your Halloween party photos.

The Real-time Eye AF or autofocus properly detects the faces and eyes of humans, as well as the eyes of animals and birds. So, you can take some great Halloween photos with the camera tracking your subject for a great final exposure.

Connectivity on the Sony ZV E10, meets your all your needs with a micro-HDMI output to connect to a monitor or TV, 2 3.5mm audio jacks with one providing audio input and the other output. You can connect a set of headphones to the jack or use the included bluetooth capability to pair wireless headphones or a mic to the camera. There is a USB-C port for powering the camera and charging it through that port, as well as a USB-C 3.1 generation 1 for data output. In addition, the Sony ZV-E10 camera can connect to the 5Ghz spectrum of the Wi-FI network, thanks to the inclusion of Wi-Fi 5 or Wi-Fi AC, so uploading your exposures to social media should be quick and easy.

As this is an interchangeable lens camera, you can use the included 16-50mm lens which is a good overall daily prime lens, or choose a different lens for your needs, ranging from telephoto to zoom and even macro lenses. Remember this camera utilizes the Sony E-mount system, so if you are looking for a lens from a different manufacturer such as Canon, you will need a mounting adapter to securely place your lens on the camera.

Additional Equipment

Besides for the stabilization included in your camera, we highly recommend the Deco Photo Tripod. Thanks to its 360-degree flexible legs and feet you can great shots from different angles without worrying about blur and shake which we often find with handheld shooting. This tripod is 12" in height and can get a solid grip on most surfaces, so you will end up with great clear images and video recordings during your Halloween Party.

Final Thoughts

The fall season and Halloween specifically can be a holiday of fun and family time. It is the perfect time to photograph a great Halloween party with your friends and loves ones and create some truly memorable moments this season. Try utilizing the Halloween photography tips provided and grab one or more of the cameras and you will be well on your way to getting some fantastic spooky photos this Halloween.

Happy Halloween!!