So it’s time for your annual company holiday party and your boss has asked you to put together a photo booth to capture the moments where, after some egg nog, you and your coworkers are laughing, having fun, and generally looking like a great team.
Problem is, your only camera is a point and shoot or your smart phone. Unfortunately, as convenient as both are, neither will do.
With that in mind, here’s a quick way to set up an automatic photo booth that will take great photos with minimal effort setting it up!
First and foremost, you’ll need a decent camera and lens. My recommendation is the Nikon D5300– it’s a great entry level DSLR that will provide you a crisp, clean images for your holiday party memories. The standard 18-55mm lens that the D5300 comes with will suffice for a photo booth, especially one that’s going to run automatically (as this will).
Check out the various D5300 kits at Adorama.
Now, since the goal of this photo booth set up is for you to walk away so you can celebrate the season, the next thing to pick up is a tripod. I recommend Adorama’s exclusive line of 3pod tripods – for the Nikon D5300, you won’t need anything super advanced as far as tripods go.
Browse the selection of 3pod tripods at Adorama.
Now that we’ve got you a camera and a tripod, it’s time to get a background to give your photo booth some flair. Westcott makes a great line of collapsible 5’ W x 7’ H backgrounds that are light and easy to set up. The Westcott X-Drop that I prefer is the Ornate design.
If that’s not your cup of tea, browse the selection of Westcott X-Drops at Adorama.
Great! So you’ve now got camera, and a backdrop for action… that leaves lights! For a quick solution to light the photo booth, the Nikon SB910 speedlightworks brilliantly. As the SB910 comes in TTL mode out of the box, it’ll be ready to go once you attach it to the D5300 (and put in batteries, of course!).
So now we’ve got the camera on a tripod, light to fill, and a background to pose in front of, we’re almost done! Now, you’ll want to take a few test shots to make sure your coworkers stay in frame and in focus before you set up this photo booth to shoot automatically. All set? Here’s the last piece which will allow you to automate your photo booth – the Flashpoint Wave Commander.
With the Flashpoint Commander, you’ll be able to quickly set the time interval between photos, and the number of photos you’d like to take. Press those settings into the Wave Commander, let the camera begin firing, and invite your coworkers to pose with some holiday cheer by the backdrop. It’s a quick and easy set up for a photo booth that will be a hit at any holiday party!
That’s it for this project – we’d love to see your holiday party photos if you’ve set up this photo booth (or a similar intervalometer centered solution). Share them in the comments and let us know what equipment you used.
Happy holidays from the team at Adorama!
