Taking Better Tree Pics

Total disclaimer here, I am not a photographer. I do not have a fancy DSLR camera, even though I desperately want one. I have only a point and shoot Elph, basic little digital camera. So, I am not about to tell you how to take fabulously professional photos of your gorgeous tree. I am going to tell you how I figured out how to take marginally better pictures of my tree, so maybe you can have the guts to fiddle around with your camera and get a good pic or two of yours too.

Okay, it started here on PInterest, of course. She has a DSLR. So I knew I was going to have to do things differently. I can't fiddle with my shutter speed. I did crank my ISO way up as high as it could go. (I have no idea what ISO stands for.) And then I started fiddling with other settings, and the one that made a difference was my exposure setting. I didn't even know I could do that. I set mine to +1. Any higher than that, and it was just too much.

There you have it, the before and after. And for good measure, here's a little behind the scenes of the tree decorating.

These two are striking their, "I am so innocent and not at all touching things I shouldn't" poses. Especially the littlest one. She's fast.

This guy was pretty excited to be able to hang the breakable ornaments. He also complained a good deal of the time that the tree was in no way superior to our usual fake tree. But, in his defense, the tree was very pokey. And he loves tradition.

Speaking of tradition, every year while decorating the tree, we watch White Christmas. Oh, how we love that movie.

So there you have it, our first real Christmas tree, and a tip or two for taking good pics of your own tree.