Get in the Frame for Holiday Photos | by Molly Carstater
December 14, 2021
Get in the Frame for Holiday Photos
How many holidays have gone by without a single photo that acknowledges that you were there also? What if I told you there is a relatively easy and painless way for you to get in the frame for holiday photos, and be included in your memories?
Getting in the frame for holiday photos isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Enter the intervalometer. I have been using this function on my Nikon cameras since I moved to Nikon in 2011. It is how I set up for self portraits, family holiday photos, and tree decorating and Christmas morning photos. Many Sony and Canon cameras also offer this function. You will want to research your specific camera model if you shoot one of those brands. One thing that I particularly love about Nikon is that the auto focus engages for every photo. So if you have a wide AF mode set, you will nearly always get something in focus.
An intervalometer (or often just interval shooting), it is similar to the self timer function. However, it allows you to specify a number of images to be shot. You can also specify a specific time sequence, or interval, between each image. You can set it for every 3 seconds, 30 seconds, or several minutes, depending on what you need. Incidentally, this can also be used for astrophotography, so that you aren’t touching your camera for each image, but that is beyond the scope of this post. Check out a great post on astrophotography here!
The first thing you will need is a sturdy tripod. Make sure to set it up some place that is relatively out of the way if you have small children or pets. We had a new puppy last year, so I did not shoot our Christmas festivities with the interval timer last year, as I did not trust her around the tripod. I did however, use this method for our Christmas card photo, setting up in a quiet park and having the puppy on a leash. If you are concerned about using a tripod with little ones, you could consider placing your camera on a counter or table that is near the action.
Next you will want to choose your lens; for images such as these, it is often easier to use a wider angle lens as they have a greater depth of field for any given aperture than a telephoto lens. They also allow for more storytelling in your images, taking in holiday decor, and other activities happening in the room. For tree decorating images, I typically shoot vertically to ensure I have the entire height of the tree in the frame. For Christmas morning I usually shoot horizontally to include as much of the room as I can; you will want to choose according to the space in your house, but I find my 24-70 is very versatile to capture indoor images.
Once you have your hardware setup, you will have to decide how often you want your camera to shoot. I typically set it for every 30 – 60 seconds. If you are shooting for an hour, that gives you 60-120 images. I find many more than that too much work to cull down. Of course, some images will come out blurry, no matter how good the auto focus works. These are easy to cull, but it is still time consuming to do so. However, if you do overshoot, it can be fun to make a timelapse GIF to see the progress of your event. I even like to include a blooper shot or two for these. They are fun to send to family and friends who can’t join your festivities.
Once you have set up your tripod and camera settings, all you need to do is to get yourself in the frame with your family and enjoy your time with them! No need to miss out on the action by being behind the camera. You will likely not end up with any award winning images (unless you are using this method for self portraits). But you will document yourself being in the midst of the activities and your family.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge of interval shooting. I had no idea this was even a thing!! I knew about the self timer feature, but never about interval. This is such an eye opener, and will be amazing for creating memories this holiday! Better late than never 😉
Thank you for sharing your knowledge of interval shooting. I had no idea this was even a thing!! I knew about the self timer feature, but never about interval. This is such an eye opener, and will be amazing for creating memories this holiday! Better late than never 😉