Looking for Holiday Lights Photography Tips

BenA2

Hi Dgrinners, I'm hoping to solicite some of your fine wisdom. I'd like to know if any of you have some tips on shooting holiday lights. I know the basics (no flash, shoot RAW, high ISO (or a tripod), and try to shoot just after sun down), but I'm hoping for a little more insight.

Last year, I totally lucked out and got this shot from my point-and-shoot:


Canon PowerShot S400 at ISO 400, 1/160s, f/2.8

This year I'm all geared up with an XT, an EF-S 17-85 IS and a Sigma 30 f/1.4 and would love to get a bunch more keepers. I have a couple of restrictions that make things interesting though. First, we'll be doing a lot of walking through neighborhoods with a lot of people, so tripod work will be difficut. I need to be able to go hand held. Second, with a bunch of people around, I'd prefer not to have to change lenses in the dark, so I really need to pick one and stick with it. Shooting hand-held in the dark, I'd usually tend toward the fast 30mm prime. But, I worry that may be too long for some shots and, shooting fast, the small DOF may be a problem in big scenes. Given that, I'm planning to go with the slower IS zoom.

1) Any recommendation contrary to going with the slow zoom?

2) Any general tips regarding metering, exposure compensation, composition, etc?

Thanks!
Ben

yoyostock

I want to bump this one. Any suggestions on how to shoot, say, a walk around one of those holiday light displays? Or, how about when standing in front of a lit tree? How do you both properly expose the faces, without blowing out the tree and its lights?

BenA2

yoyostock wrote:

I want to bump this one. Any suggestions on how to shoot, say, a walk around one of those holiday light displays? Or, how about when standing in front of a lit tree? How do you both properly expose the faces, without blowing out the tree and its lights?

I didn't get any love with that post two years ago, but since have found some very helpful resources, the best of which is probably here at Strobist. There's also a thread here on Dgrin you might find helpful.

LiquidAir

Last year I shot all of my lights photos with the 35/1.4 on a 5D. I did a quick review of those shots and it looks like the majority of them were shot at f/1.8, 1/60s and ISO 1000. I'll stand by the choice of a fast wide prime as the best lens for lights shots, though depth of field was something of an issue. This year I may push the ISO and shutter speed a so I can stop down a bit more.

Elaine

Just read this article over on strobist...

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-photograph-christmas-lights.html

Glenn NK

Good article - thanks for posting.

The only thing I can add is that lighting displays (stationary) is where IS starts to shine (pun intended).

G

pathfinder

I think the best point is the one from the Strobist article, and published in books and magazines galore over the years.

You must shoot in that great light of twilight, when the sky has not quite gone dark, but the sun is down, and the tungsten lighting begins to come into balance with the ambient.

In that brief time - maybe 10 - 20 minutes - the light is glowing and you can capture the decorative tungsten lights against the coming night sky with the buildings and people also lighted by the ambient light in balance with the strength of the tungsten.

You will need to pay attention to the light, because you will find that the exposure changes minute by minute as the sun gets farther and farther below the horizon. This is when architectural photographers do their best work.

With Christmas light, you might be able to extend this brief time a few more minutes by judicious use of fill flash also - say -(minus)1 or -(minus) 2 stops of fill flash.

The later in this period, the darker everything but the lights. The earlier in this period, the brighter the surroundings. You can have it either way.

yoyostock

Elaine wrote:

Just read this article over on strobist...

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-photograph-christmas-lights.html

Thanks, Elaine. That's a great reference.

Phyxius

I'm glad I saw this thread, I'm heading over to read the strobist article soon, but I was happy to read Pathfinder's info. Good stuff there!

I've not done much (read hardly any) holiday light photography, but when I did I kind of viewed it as I do night/city photography (which I also don't do much or often ). I learn visually, so I hope you don't mind if I post a couple links here of my previous attempts.

Last year a good friend of mine was working just a stone's throw from the White House so we decided to meet up and take a walk around the Christmas trees. I met another friend at near the Air and Space Museum and we walked from there. Is this shot of the Capital the twilight light you were speaking of?
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/118212120-M.jpg

So, by the time we walked to my friend's office and the White House it was dark as pitch.
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/118214121-M.jpg

The National Christmas Tree
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/118216846-M.jpg

Each state also has a tree -
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/118217853-M.jpg

And then I also have this shot of the Power Plant in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Taken on New Year's Eve before the fireworks.
http://phyxius.smugmug.com/photos/120230338-M.jpg

I can't remember who posted them, but someone had wonderful christmas light photos that they posted here on dgrin. But, what are some suggestions about these? Exposure is hard to determine and I tend to like my images a little darker than most. I cringe to "expose" to the right of my histogram sometimes.

Any additional thoughts?

Glenn mentioned IS lenses and I have to say I was absolutely thrilled with the handheld results I got from the VR lens (VR is just Nikon's version of IS).

Yoyo, I'm not sure if rear curtain flash or the like would work since the person will most likely be close to the tree, but it can work for nighttime scenery shots. This was just a test, but it was a flash + long exposure
http://inlinethumb28.webshots.com/603/2487688790053642453S500x500Q85.jpg

Maybe you could set up a tripod and take two shots, one long exposure of the tree and one flash with the person and then blend the two in photoshop? I'm not sure how strange that would look...

alex

Christmas lights in New Mexico
This is probably not exactly what you are looking for, but maybe it helps anyway.

Christmas in New Mexico is a little different: The standard christmas lights are luminarias, little paper bags with a candle inside. But for Photography that does not make much of a difference. I usually shoot lowest ISO and long exposure time with little or no fill flash, before it is completely dark outside.


(15" f/16)



(15" f/5) What looks like some fill is actually a strategically placed street light to the right.



(13" f/5) The long exposure also helps blur some of the people walking through the frame.


(30" f/8) And I always use the heaviest tripod I have, not only for the photos, but also to protect the camera: People always try to knock mine over in the dark...

joshhuntnm

I am from New Mexico -- Las Cruces.

Where is this? Its beatiful!

alex

joshhuntnm wrote:

I am from New Mexico -- Las Cruces.

Where is this? Its beatiful!

Hi Josh,

It's all in Albuquerque. The first pic is University House on the UNM campus, the rest are from Old Town on Christmas Eve.


Edit: Thanks to http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=657186&postcount=4 I finally got my location to show below my user name.

BeachBill

alex wrote:

Christmas in New Mexico is a little different: The standard christmas lights are luminarias, little paper bags with a candle inside.

And I thought I had it bad having to plug in five different sets of lights every night. I ended up automating with X10--something they can't do with those candles.

Carloskbco

These are my try at Christmas lights...
I have discovered some neighborhoods in San Carlos, California, that people go all out in decorating their houses for the holidays...the following are shots taken last night, as the sun was setting, with my DSLR Olympus E300 14-54mm lens, tripod, tungsten White Balance (3200K), ISO 100 f8 for 2-6 seconds...









And this should have been my Christmas card this year...




Hope you like them...

Carlos

Antonio Correia

Carlos,
The ones I like most are the 1.st and the last.
However as the WB was set to 3200K both look a little bit too magenta/red.
May be you could correct that from your raw file...

Health to all the family and to yourselfD