Tips For Creating A Simple DIY Photobooth
One of my favorite tips about planning a successful party is to give your guests something to do when they walk in the door (it helps with the social anxiety until they’re warmed up). And my personal favorite of those activities is a DIY photo booth. I mean, I’ll also take a professional photo booth, but the parties I throw don’t usually have that kind of budget. When Michael and I got married, it was at the very beginning of the DIY photo booth trend. I had a DSLR, and a tripod, so I figured what the heck. I could probably make a professional-looking photo booth, right? Except, our venue was dark, and it turns out we had the wrong tripod mount. So what we ended up with was a fancy backdrop that mostly hid boxes at our venue. C’est la vie. In hindsight, I realize now that what we were trying to do was rig a professional-looking photo booth without being… professionals. Which might have been our first mistake.
for his best tips on DIYing a wedding photo booth. At first I was surprised that his advice wasn’t chock full of fancy equipment and lighting equipment recommendations. But then I remembered—unless you know someone who owns and understands DSLRs and lighting equipment (or you have a burning desire to learn), trying to figure out how to use your uncle’s fancy camera (and then leaving said camera in the hands of drunk wedding guests) is probably more trouble than it’s worth, and renting or buying all that equipment can quickly get close to the cost of a professional photo booth. Plus, as technology has evolved over the last few years (hello iPhone with portrait lighting!), you really don’t need pro equipment to make a kick-ass DIY photo booth
MAKE A BACKDROP. Your backdrop doesn’t have to be fancy. It definitely should not be complicated. Start with a blank solid-color wall. White. Black. Blue. Whatever. If you want a pattern—have a pattern. If you want a mountain landscape with cats shooting lasers, or unicorns wrestling dolphins—do it. You can buy pre-designed photo backdrops at places like Minted or buy custom fabric at places like Spoonflower
PROVIDE AS MUCH LIGHT AS POSSIBLE. Instead of fiddling with any kind of camera flash setup, just make sure your DIY photo booth area is very, very, very well lit. I’m talking strangely, glowingly, bright. It can be in a well-lit separate room or just partitioned off—but make sure you provide lots and lots of light. If your reception is during the day, then this won’t be a problem at all. If you need to bring in lamps and plug them in—do it. (For an easy and decent lighting hack, you can use one of those cheap dorm lamps with any bulbs that say “daylight” on the package or have a color temperature of between 5000K and 6500K for a super bright light that mimics daylight.
GET SOME PROPS. Toys. Costumes. Inflatable pool floats. Whatever you think will make it more fun and interesting for your guests. Animal masks are always a big hit, and so is anything that’s way too big or over sized like sunglasses or jewelry. The weirder or more unique, the better. Always. Except feather boas. NO FEATHER BOAS. Ever. (They’re just too messy.)
Props and Shots Photo Booth
rops and Shots were recently hired to do our friend’s wedding. I really appreciated how helpful they were in not only explaining the photobooth, but making suggestions on what we could do with our pictures! Most of the time, photobooth vendors are there just to make sure that nothing breaks or to tell people to look at the camera… so I was impressed by the care they gave to wedding guests!
Also, I appreciated how they were kind and considerate even though my wife and I were there several minutes before they were done setting up. We requested JPEG files of the pictures we took, and Diana was so kind to offer to send those to us and she gave us her business email right there. She sent the JPEGs over to us a business day later and was great at communicating over email as well.
A photo booth is nearly a staple for most weddings or events nowadays. My fiance and I extensively researched different photo booth options in the Bay Area and this particular photo booth company stood out from others because of their excellent selection of high quality props, beautiful backgrounds, high resolution images with good lighting, option for 4×6 photos (in addition to the standard 2×6 size), and very reasonable pricing.
On the day of the wedding, I received many compliments from my guests about how much they enjoyed the photobooth. Not only did they love the fun props and themed hats, but Diana and her team were incredibly helpful and friendly. Our wedding reception was over 270 guests and my new husband and I almost didn’t even take photos ourselves! Luckily
I’ve been to 6 weddings this summer, and Props and Shot’s photo booth was definitely at the top with it’s awesome props and very clear photos. Something about their lighting made everyone look really good in the pictures. As a guest at my friend’s wedding, I really enjoyed the experience!
STARTING A PHOTO BOOTH BUSINESS? WE ANSWER YOUR MOST ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: How much does it cost to rent a photo booth?
A: Usually between $700 to $1200 per event. Most photo booth companies have a minimum number of service hours which can range anywhere from 2 hours to 4 hours. However, we find that the average rental price in the US is between $200 – $300 per hour of rental.
Q: How much do photo booth owners make? Are photo booths profitable?
A: Photo booth rental companies can make a lot! The great thing about the photo booth rental business is that the hard costs (photo media, social sharing fees) are very inexpensive and usually average around $75-$100 per event. After these hard costs, you’ll need to factor in your overhead costs like labor & business liability insurance as well as variable costs such as advertising. But given the fact that most photo booth rental businesses can operate out of a home office and the fact that the average photo booth rental price is between $700 – $1200 per event, the net revenue per event, especially for an owner operate, is very lucrative. In fact, photo booth rental businesses are so profitable that about a third of our customers come back to us when they expand their rental operation with more photo booths and larger service areas.
Q: How much does it cost to buy a photo booth?
A: Although all photo booths capture an image with a camera and provide photos from the photo session, there is a large range to photo booth purchase costs, from $1,500 – $9,000 or more depending on the type or classification of photo booth.
Q: What types of events do people rent photo booths for?
A: Weddings, for sure! But that’s not all. Photo Booths are popular for other private events including birthday parties, corporate events, quinceaneras, bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs and anniversary parties. People also rent photo booths for corporate events, festivals, as entertainment for concert VIP areas and large marketing events such as activations and experiential events.
Q: What is the difference between an iPad Photo Booth and a DSLR Photo Booth?
A: iPad Photo Booths utilize the camera and touchscreen display from an iPad to generate digital photos. Because there is less hardware in these types of photo booths pricing is much less and can range from $1,500 to $4000. These types of photo booths have some super fun photo features including boomerang pics, animated GIFs and regular photos that can all be shared on social media platforms. In fact, iPad Photo Booths from HootBooth include digital props and face tracking filters that are similar to Snapchat filters.
Photo Booth + Photography Services
HOW DO I BOOK THE BOOTH?
We check for date availability
Choose the best package for your budget
Review & Sign contract
Pay 50% down payment to secure date (NON-REFUNDABLE)
Pay remaining 50% two weeks before event
Let’s PARTY!!!!
GIF’s
This captivating feature allows you and your guests to incorporate multiple snapshots in quick succession to imitate a video format. The Booth will create a GIF file to show each of these pictures flashing by. Guests will be able to email or text these GIFs which will be saved as an MP4 for easy upload to Instagram.
BOOMERANG
Guests will take a 1.5 second video, which will be looped back and forth for 7 seconds. These captured sessions will be saved as MP4 files and can be emailed to the guests.
VIDEO
The Booth also provides the option for you and your guests to film short dynamic videos! You will be able to film clips up to 10 seconds in length, which will be shot and saved in MP4 format.
LIVE VIEW
No need to guess what your photos will look like. Our booth offers live view so you can see yourself and get picture perfect photos on the first shot!
Photo Booth User Guide
Take a photo or record a video in Photo Booth on Mac
You can take a single photo or a group of four photos, or record a video using your computer’s built-in camera or an external video camera connected to your Mac.
Take a photo
If you’re using an external video camera, make sure it’s connected to your computer and turned on.
Record a video
If you’re using an external video camera, make sure it’s connected to your computer and turned on.
Turn off the countdown or flash for photos
When you take a photo, there’s a three-second countdown before the photo is taken. Your screen flashes when the photo is taken.
Choose a screen size
When taking photos or recording a video in PhotoBooth, you can adjust the window size to either full screen to use your entire computer screen, or Split View if you want to work in another app at the same time.