Hello Everyone and welcome to 29PM’s first blog. Where we will be discussing things from photo booth to all things party related. We want to help you be more knowledgeable when hiring vendors. Kinda like tips and tricks! Anyways let’s begin! We are going to start off with a photo booth topic. 

We see a lot of companies using this particular item with their booths. Some might actually be good, but we’ve seen plenty that just isn’t up to par. We’re talking about companies using iPad or webcams to take pictures in place of a camera. There is definitely nothing wrong with that, but the results will not look as amazing as if they used an actual camera.

The quality of the photos using the iPad or web cameras is not HD they also look slightly blurry almost pixelated. When comparing the quality to the photo quality of a camera (if done properly) will look like a real photoshoot!  

Another very important thing we’d like to point out is Lighting. Lighting is another thing that will make or break the perfect photo. If there isn’t enough lighting then the photos will look dark and dull. Too much light and it will make the photos bright and everyone will look white. Companies using the iPad usually use ring lights. With the ring lights, certain photo booth ring lights aren’t easily adjustable, they might keep the lighting the same the whole time whether the event setting is bright or dark. Having an unadjustable light is very inconvenient, lighting can change throughout the day and you want to accommodate every lighting situation.

We’ve attended a party where they had an iPad photo booth with the ring light and the photos weren’t pleasing. It should all our flaws because the lighting was so bright and wasn’t adjusted properly. Another thing we noticed with the iPad photo booth was that when the picture was taken the photo was flipped, kinda like the front camera on your iPhone. 

When using a camera you are able to control the lighting better. Some companies use a softbox, while others use an umbrella. We used to use a softbox, but really enjoy the photo quality taken using an umbrella, but it’s honestly preference. The other thing with softboxes is it doesn’t always look appealing having softboxes set up at an event. We prefer a cleaner look and not having so much equipment out at an event. At events we go to some of the guests like to get real close to the camera when taking their pictures, so what we do is just move the umbrella back a bit so the guest won’t look white in their photos and vice versa!

The vendors that do use an iPad or webcam will be cheaper, if you want to also keep that in mind if you are on a budget. Parties do get pretty expensive, we totally get it. Our goal is to boost your photo booth knowledge a little so you know what to look for if you want the BEST photo quality from your photo booth experience.