November 16, 2023 Lauren Orcinolo

Must-Have Family Photos for Thanksgiving

With the Fall season here, it’s time to start thinking about the Holiday Season and a great Thanksgiving celebration. From a great family photoshoot to a photographing a scrumptious Thanksgiving dinner, what kind of must have photos are you looking for? Whether they are candid shots or close ups of your entire family, it is imperative that you have the right tools and family photo ideas to get those high-quality images you want.

Part of what makes the holiday season of Thanksgiving and Christmas are the cherished memories that we make captured in photography. Family portraits taken during the holidays, allows you to relieve and show off those great thanksgiving family photos such as family members sitting around the dinner table.

Let’s take a look at some photography tips to help make this Thanksgiving Day a great one for you.

Photography Ideas

Grab that special moment with your family members in a pumpkin patch as you are all out as a family getting that pumpkin ready for some delicious pumpkin pie.
Speaking of Pumpkin Pie, photographing Thanksgiving food around the Thanksgiving table, with the right camera and tools is a great way to show off your photography skills. If you are a Vlogger or Content Creator, you may want to upload those amazing holiday photos to your social media site of choice. Using our photography ideas and the essential items listed below will assist you in achieving this goal.
To reinforce what we believe regarding food photography being such an integral part of today’s Vlogging and Content Creation, you just need to check online at the plethora of food content and the photography associated with it.
When thinking of some good Thanksgiving photoshoot ideas, we feel it incumbent to speak on the importance of Thanksgiving Family Photos. These can range from candid photos taken arbitrability, to group photos, to Portrait Photography taken by a professional photographer. Try having your family members decked out in there holiday sweaters, holding hands for an amazing group shot.
Try to get some backdrops of the amazing fall foliage into your shots. Having your subject stand outside in the natural light, will capture them and the beautiful leaves for some wonderful pics.
Make sure that your Thanksgiving Photography highlights the “little ones” in your family. Showing off your loved ones, especially the kiddos all decked out in their Holiday gear, make for some of the most special Thanksgiving Family Pictures.

Essential Items

Now that we have discussed some photography tips and ideas for Thanksgiving, we need to examine what are some of the essential tools and equipment you may need for your Thanksgiving Day Photoshoot.

Cameras:

Grab yourself a great DSLR camera for those amazing image and video recordings this holiday season.
- Our Top Pick for a wonderful camera for this Thanksgiving is the Sony Alpha ZV-E10 Interchangeable Lens Mirrorless Vlog Camera w/ 16-50mm Lens
  - This is a full frame camera body interchangeable lens camera, which sits on the Sony E-Mount system and can be used with Sony’s g master g lenses
  - Contains Active Mode Image Stabilization for smooth buttery shots without the accustomed to handheld photography.
  - A 24.2 effective megapixel CMOS sensor for high quality images. The image sensor of the Sony ZV-E10 can be up to ten times bigger than your typical smartphone sensor.
  - ISO Ranges for manual mode and autofocus mode: ISO 100-32000 (ISO ranges up from ISO 50 to ISO 51200 can be set as expanded ISO range.) AUTO (ISO 100-6400, selectable lower limit and upper limit can be chosen as well). Remember for all your aspiring professional photographers, manual mode will give you more control over individual settings than autofocus will.
  - 4K HDR video recording at up to 30 FPS and full HD 1080P recording at up to 120 FPS making for smooth frame rates on your video recordings.
  - With the ZV-E10 you can focus on some of the more creative aspects of vlogging. The camera's Eye AutoFocus detects, and tracks a subject's eyes accurately, making for those family photos around the dinner table pop with precise clarity.
  - There is a 3” LCD flip out touchscreen viewfinder making it even easier to focus and see your shooting area and subjects.
  - The side-opening vari-angle LCD touch screen makes it easy to take selfies and check for proper framing.
  - The ZV-E10 also comes equipped with tremendous vlogging features, including; "Background Defocus", "Product Showcase Setting" and "Face Priority AE" along with Sony's tremendous autofocus. These are great for Vloggers or if you really want to show off the extreme detail of your Thanksgiving Day Photoshoot.
  - Get that amazing clear voice recording you are shooting for with a built-in Directional 3-Capsule Mic. The ZV-E10 records voices clearly even in crowded settings, so don’t worry about capturing the audio you want even around a crowded dinner table. It's made to hear and obtain voices in front of the camera with fewer distracting ambient sounds, perfect for vlogging use.
- Another unique camera which would make for a fun Thanksgiving Day is the Fujifilm Instax Mini 12 Instant Camera.
  - This is such a cute unique little camera, it will have your family members wanting one for themselves.
  - This is a great camera for selfie’s. Capture that amazing selfie with some wonderful Thanksgiving Food as your background. Or grab some selfie’s with your family members. Family portraits can be fun.
  - Automatically adjusting to ambient light or natural light, are the shutter speed, flash brightness and other settings. This means less you have to do as a photographer and more the camera will do for you.
  - Extremely simplistic in it’s ease of use. Twist the lens to turn on the camera and then twist again for close up mode. Close up mode is ideal for those close shots, where the subject or object if your shot isn’t further away than 50 cm from your camera. When Close Up mode is activated your object/subject will appear in the center of the print.
  - The Fujifilm Instax Mini 12 has an automatic exposure and flash control. Therefore, as a photographer you just need to aim and depress the shutter. There is no need to adjust any settings, you just need the camera to get simple fun instant pint exposures this Turkey Day.
  - Finally with this iconic looking instant photo camera, try using the Instax Up app from Fuji. Using this app will allow you to scan your prints so they can be tagged and edited for sharing with your family and friends, or uploading the photos to your social media site of choice.
Lenses
- Now that you have a great DSLR camera (albeit coming in with a 16-50mm lens), you may want choices as to what type of lens or additional lens to attach to your interchangeable lens camera the Sony Alpha ZV-E10.
- Since the Sony Alpha ZV-E10 sits on the patented Sony E-Mount system, if you do purchase a lens from a different manufacturer such as Tamron or Nikon, make sure that you have a mounting adapter to get your lens on.
- Try purchasing a prime lens for great all around use, or if you are looking to really hone in on those portrait family photos possibly out and about in a pumpkin patch or caroling, check out a telephoto zoom lens to get right in on the action even from greater distances.

In Closing

Thanksgiving is a great time to gather with your family and friends over a wonderful family dinner. Having your family members around to be photographed in a family photoshoot is the perfect time to capture some great close-ups and candid shots of your family. Setting up for an unforgettable holiday season, a filling Thanksgiving Dinner and sharing this time with your loved ones will make for a great holiday. So get those Must-Have family photos and enjoy your Turkey Day.