Getting the best quality photos and videos from your photo booth starts with having the right camera settings. This guide walks you through everything you need to know — from basic exposure settings to white balance, flash, autofocus, and slow-motion video.

Use these settings when your booth is lit by a ring light, LED panel, or any continuous light source — with no flash.

In your Snappic camera settings, enable the Use Capture Settings for Live Preview toggle when using constant light. This ensures your live preview and your recorded video use the same exposure settings. Never leave video on default — always set it manually.

White balance controls the colour tone of your images. Incorrect white balance results in photos that look too yellow, too blue, or inconsistent across your gallery.

If your booth light and the venue's ambient lighting are different colour temperatures (e.g. your ring light is white, but the venue has yellow overhead lights), your camera will struggle to find a consistent white balance automatically. In these cases, set the white balance manually rather than leaving it on automatic.

If your ring light or flash has a Kelvin rating printed on it (e.g. 5500K), you can match this exactly on your DSLR:

This is the most reliable method for consistent results.

Note: Custom White Balance (using a grey card) is best left to professional photographers — it's a more complex process and not necessary for photo booth use.

When using flash, your live preview and your actual photo use separate settings. In Snappic, toggle off Use Capture Settings for Live Preview for the photo when using flash.

If you need to push your ISO above 400 even with the flash at full power, your flash is not strong enough for the setup. In that case, consider switching to a constant light configuration instead.

Every camera has a maximum shutter speed it can sync with a flash. Exceeding this limit causes a dark band to creep up from the bottom of your photos.

There is no benefit to using a shutter speed above 1/200 with flash — it only reduces your exposure and risks sync failure.

Start on the Flash white balance setting. Standard flash tubes fire at approximately 5500K, so you can also set a manual color temperature of 5500K for the most consistent results. If you use a Godox-style dual light (constant + flash in one unit), the colour temperature may vary — test a few options to find what looks best with your setup.

Exposure simulation is a setting on your DSLR that makes the live view screen reflect your current exposure settings in real time (what you see is what you get).

This must always be enabled for Snappic to correctly control your camera. If it is turned off, changes you make to ISO, shutter speed, or aperture in the app will not be reflected in the live preview.

If you change a setting in Snappic and nothing seems to happen on your live preview, the first thing to check is whether Exposure Simulation is enabled on your camera.

Compatibility note: Exposure simulation is a mirrorless camera feature. Older DSLR mirror cameras (such as Canon T-series Rebels or 5D series) do not have this setting — this is expected and not a problem.

Snappic gives you the option to autofocus during the countdown, during capture, or both. We recommend enabling only one at a time — not both together.

Having both enabled simultaneously forces the camera to focus twice per shot. In low-light venues, this significantly increases the chance of a soft or missed focus.

If you are experiencing focus issues, One Shot vs. Servo is the only AF mode setting you need to troubleshoot.

To shoot slow motion, you first need to enable high frame rate mode on your camera — this is separate from standard video mode.

To enable it, go into your camera's movie settings and turn on High Frame Rate mode. Without this, your camera will only offer standard frame rates (30/60fps) and slow motion will appear choppy.

Recording in Photo Mode: Some cameras allow video recording while in Photo mode. If yours does, be aware that this is limited to a maximum of 60fps recording. In this case, the highest slow-motion you can achieve is 1/2 speed, giving you a 30fps output. To access higher frame rates (120fps+), you must switch the camera to Movie/Video mode and enable High Frame Rate from there.

Snappic VideoFX outputs at either 30fps or 60fps, with speed multipliers of 1/2, 1/3, 1/6, and more depending on your camera's frame rate capability.

Use Smooth for 60fps output. Use Normal for 30fps output. There is a reference link directly on the template settings screen in the app.

If your frame rates are correctly configured and the video is still choppy, the issue is almost always shutter speed.

The 180 Rule: shutter speed = frame rate × 2

Higher shutter speeds reduce exposure. If your booth doesn't have enough lighting to reach the correct shutter speed, the video will remain choppy — more light around the 360 is needed.