Is anyone completely tired of all the Halloween play-on-words ads lately?

“SPOOK-TACULAR SAVINGS!!”

“DEALS SO GOOD…….IT’S SCARY!!”

Oh, man. I’m pretty sure no one has come up with a clever Halloween ad for 20 years. It’s DEATHLY BOO-ring.

Anyway, I was playing around with the kids and the camera the other day taking SPOOKY pictures, as we called them. I thought I’d post a few with a tutorial of how to take your own TERRIFYINGLY TERRIFIC pictures. Here are my examples:

OK, so the first thing you need is either a tripod or some stable surface to put your camera (well maybe technically the first thing you need is a camera that you can adjust the shutter speed). A lot of p&s (point and shoot) cameras these days will allow you to set the shutter speed as well so check your manual.

Mount your camera and set your shutter speed for about 3 seconds. If you work in manual mode then adjust the aperture and ISO until you get a good exposure. If you put your camera in shutter speed mode then it will likely do all the rest of the settings for you. My settings for these pictures was 3.2 seconds, f/9, ISO 50 but you could make the shutter way longer if you want. You may need to up your ISO if you are in a bright setting.
Now have your ghost stand where you want, lock the focus on them (have them sit or stand VERY still) and push the shutter button to take the picture. About 1/2 way through the 3 seconds have your ghost move out of the frame of the picture.

Once you hear the shutter close again take a look at the preview of your picture and voila! You should have a FANG-TASTICLY BOO-TIFUL picture. *(keep reading for an explanation of how this works…or if you are really bored)

So there you have it. One more tip I have for this tutorial is that if you are still getting slightly blurry pictures try setting the timer on your camera so that you don’t have to manually press the button. Sometimes that can shake the camera as well.

*The reason you need a stable surface or a tripod is because the shutter is open for a good 3 seconds recording the scene in front of your lens onto the sensor. (If you try and hand-hold, no matter how still you think you are, you will still have a blurry picture.) When your GHOSTLY subject stands in the scene for a second, it briefly records them onto the sensor but records all of the scenery the whole three seconds, making your ghost look transparent.