Beginner Question-Shooting Photos of Christmas Lights

deeve

Hello, last night was a nice clear cold night here and I decided to try and take some photos of our outside Christmas lights. It is not spectacular, but I wanted to do it more as a try to see how it turns out. I wanted the photos to show the lights nice and sharp but it seems I get "blossoms"(correct word?) around them and it just isn't very impressive. I also took a photo of the indoor tree and it looks drab with not very vibrant colors. I tried different settings from Shutter Mode, Aperture Mode and Program Mode. I am kind of embarrassed to post these, but they are the "best" two I had out of about 70 shots taken. . I have a Nikon D40X with a Nikon 18-70 lens and used a tripod. The photo quality was set to "normal" in the camera.

I am very new at photo taking and trying to work through things. Any suggestions on where to start?

Thank you!
DAVE


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angevin1

First things first.

Try this for the outside shot.

Set up your camera and tripod.

Adjust your ISO back down to 320.

Put your camera in M mode.

Adjust your focus to the point to those three green trees that are lit, with aperture set to f/8 or maybe f/11

Look thru your viewfinder. The meter will tell you to adjust Shutter speed left or right depending. Adjust your meter to the center.

Take your photo and look/Chimp. And readjust. Too dark, give it less shutter speed, etc. You may find using a timer works best because you may be in the 1 or 2 second range.

Shoot RAW and Shoot your greatest Photo size.

Try the same with the inside tree shot too. But also do this: try getting down to a toddlers viewpoint and seeing if that tree looks a bit better. try some different angles as well. Also think of toning down, turning off or dimming the other lights in the room.

Lights overall are hard to shoot. In fact you know we photographers spend a lot of time and money trying not to shoot light, so it takes some patience, and practice. If I wanted to shoot my tree here at the house prob. the first thing I'd do is get a dimmer out and dim the darn lights down so I can actually look at them. The dynamic range from bright lights to room is huge typically.

Mix and Stir to taste.

threecubed

Another tip for photographing outside lights is to take the pictures at dusk, instead of after it's all the way dark.
Here's a post with some more tips for shooting outdoor lights:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-photograph-christmas-lights.html

Here are blog posts with two different techniques about shooting Christmas tree pictures. Both are quite popular right now on Pinterest if you're familiar with that site.
http://unskinnyboppy.blogspot.com/2010/12/taking-pics-of-tree.html (glowing tree)
http://purephotoshopactions.com/?p=1137 (sparkly tree)

deeve

angevin1 wrote: »

First things first.

Try this for the outside shot.

Set up your camera and tripod.

Adjust your ISO back down to 320.

Put your camera in M mode.

Adjust your focus to the point to those three green trees that are lit, with aperture set to f/8 or maybe f/11

Look thru your viewfinder. The meter will tell you to adjust Shutter speed left or right depending. Adjust your meter to the center.

Take your photo and look/Chimp. And readjust. Too dark, give it less shutter speed, etc. You may find using a timer works best because you may be in the 1 or 2 second range.

Shoot RAW and Shoot your greatest Photo size.

Try the same with the inside tree shot too. But also do this: try getting down to a toddlers viewpoint and seeing if that tree looks a bit better. try some different angles as well. Also think of toning down, turning off or dimming the other lights in the room.

Lights overall are hard to shoot. In fact you know we photographers spend a lot of time and money trying not to shoot light, so it takes some patience, and practice. If I wanted to shoot my tree here at the house prob. the first thing I'd do is get a dimmer out and dim the darn lights down so I can actually look at them. The dynamic range from bright lights to room is huge typically.

Mix and Stir to taste.

Thank you! I went out and messed around with a few quick shots and can see the difference. Nothing special, just a quicky to try out what you suggested. It make sense and was a good tutorial for me. I used ISO 400 (camera wouldn't give me 320) but everything else was matched up. The shot I took of the tree really came out a lot better.

I'm going to work with it some more and read those websites that were mentioned. There is just so much to learn, every time I learn one little thing that actually makes sense, I feel like it is an accomplishment.

Thanks again,
DAVE