Shooting Christmas lights

pathfinder

There have been requests for a discussion of shooting Christmas lights with digital cameras. It is easy as pie. You do not need a fancy camera. A P&S will do just fine.

First - you really need to get a tripod that you like, and will use. This will make your camera's lens much sharper.:thumb

Next, you need to read your manual and find out how to set your camera into Av mode or Manual mode, with the color balance set for tungsten. Shoot in RAW if your camera is able. Set your camera to shoot with a 2 second timer delay.

The, go shoot some lights, and chimp a few frames, until you get it fine tuned.

You should see something like this ISO 80 f 3.5 1 second Canon G9 - shot in RAW and edited in PSCS3.




And this ISO 80 f4.8 1 second Manual Mode




Sometimes you do not have your tripod with you though ISO 200 f3.2 1/10th sec -1.0 stops -EC handheld




But a tripod is really very useful ISO 80 f7.1 5 seconds Manual Mode



Merry Christmas - enjoy shooting the Christmas Lights in your neighborhood ISO 80 f7.1 5 seconds Manual Mode




You might just find Smuggy smiling back at you ISO 80 f8.0 8 seconds



No DSLRs needed - all captured with my point and shoot Canon G9, and a good tripod.:barb

TheMightyZog

Well, I think a touch of processing would help these images - I dont like grey snow. Try applying the green channel in Screen mode to get this sort of enhancement as a starter for ten.

http://www.broadhurst-family.co.uk/Photos/233230945-XL.jpg

Pity we dont have any snow here and not likely to, as it is beautiful and very difficult to capture well.

Happy Xmas

pathfinder

Zog,

I am pleased you dropped by to offer us your insights. No one else seemed very interested in my shots.

I looked at your website and found much to appreciate. You have a lot of interesting thought displayed in your website. Your Actions look very useful.

My calibrated monitor does a bang up job displaying your red, green, blue, and gray bands to verify gamma 2.2, which is what my monitor is set to also. I calibrate my screen monthly by a SPyder2, and recalibrated just before posting this reply.

I appreciate your attempt to improve my images, although I did not request editing suggestions. Before you download someone's images, and add them to your website ( see your link), it is customary to verify permission. The inability to "attach photos" directly, due to smugmug inactivating this temporarily, sometimes does make it necessary for us to load someone else's image to our website temporarily, to allow linkage. I understand this.

Thank you for your suggestions, but I prefer my image of the fence row the way I have posted it. I am aware that much of the snow is not real bright, and I might have cropped it better. I can read the pixels, and I do know what gray reads. In direct comparison to your editing attempt of my image, however, I think I still prefer mine.

I grok plate bending, or the use of a channel blend. Indeed, checking for the possibility of a channel to be applied, is a routine part of my workflow.

Hang around the Technique thread, I am sure you have much to offer our reader's here.

rwells

Pathfinder,

I find that first picture, the tree, something to stare at. What is that white stuff all over it? I'm from Texas, we have to use mesquite trees here


I really, really like the picture of the fence along the road with the lit stuff (whatever that's called) Very nice picture.

Thanks for the tips, they are appreciated

pathfinder

Thanks, Randy, I am glad you liked my fence too.

I know you Texans see snow from time to time. We Hoosiers, just have to remind you what it is called.

You have a very Merry Christmas, ya hear!

Antonio Correia

Jim. Good afternoon. (For me that is)

In your post you say; "No one else seemed very interested in my shots."
Apparently yes but I saw your pictures the other day and I showed them to my wife who is by my side on her own computer.
I told them that the photos were nice but I was not in the mood to comment.

I had just arrived from Lisbon, where I have been on purpouse just to shoot Christmas lights and there were so few that I ended up shooting the inside of a church ! Economic crisis ! That's what it is !:cry

But I also had no comments on this thread . Yes, you can do it now.

Of all your photos the one I like best it precisely the one of the fence.
And I like your version best than the other one Zog did.

I think that a photo is not only technique. A photo is supposed to transmit the mood, the ambiance of a scene. And yours is better in this matter.

Lately I have been reading some lines about histograms and I came to the conclusion - so far and I may change it quickly - that what is displayed in this information is not what we want from the picture.

The histogram is really a tool of guidance but we can't take it too far away.

Well, at this time I have already hijacked your post

The other photo which pleases me very much - and the snow is reddish and grey in the foreground, what the heck - is the 1.st one.

I like the colors and the mood. Of course you could clone the lights back there but it is not important.

The snowman - you are going to hate me for this - I don't like it.
As a matter of fact, our photos can't please everybody ... And this is good.

The Italian restaurant is very nice and I appreciate the lights on the cars.

The last one is nice and you have achieved a nice white balance.

I wish you Health in this Christmas season and in 2008.

pyrtek

pathfinder wrote:

No one else seemed very interested in my shots.

Awwww, c'mere, big guy. There, better?

photocat

Just saw your thread... I wondered if I was the only one shooting christmas lights in all formats and forms. I will go out again with your guidance rules and see what gives. Thank you so much for sharing your pics with us, I really enjoyed them.
I hope that lots of people will chime in...

pathfinder

pyrtek wrote:

Awwww, c'mere, big guy. There, better?

Boo Hoo Boo Hoo:D

pathfinder

Antonio Correia wrote:

Jim. Good afternoon. (For me that is)

In your post you say; "No one else seemed very interested in my shots."
Apparently yes but I saw your pictures the other day and I showed them to my wife who is by my side on her own computer.
I told them that the photos were nice but I was not in the mood to comment.

I had just arrived from Lisbon, where I have been on purpouse just to shoot Christmas lights and there were so few that I ended up shooting the inside of a church ! Economic crisis ! That's what it is !:cry

But I also had no comments on this thread . Yes, you can do it now.

Of all your photos the one I like best it precisely the one of the fence.
And I like your version best than the other one Zog did.

I think that a photo is not only technique. A photo is supposed to transmit the mood, the ambiance of a scene. And yours is better in this matter.

Lately I have been reading some lines about histograms and I came to the conclusion - so far and I may change it quickly - that what is displayed in this information is not what we want from the picture.

The histogram is really a tool of guidance but we can't take it too far away.

Well, at this time I have already hijacked your post

The other photo which pleases me very much - and the snow is reddish and grey in the foreground, what the heck - is the 1.st one.

I like the colors and the mood. Of course you could clone the lights back there but it is not important.

The snowman - you are going to hate me for this - I don't like it.
As a matter of fact, our photos can't please everybody ... And this is good.

The Italian restaurant is very nice and I appreciate the lights on the cars.

The last one is nice and you have achieved a nice white balance.

I wish you Health in this Christmas season and in 2008.

Hi Antonio,

I posted this thread because all the questions and comments about shooting Christmas lights. Also I like to demonstrate from time to time, that fancy cameras are not needed as often as some folks seem to think. I like playing with P&Ss as well as DSLRs.

My images are not fine art here, but a quick walk through a few neighbors yards after the sun had already set.

The color of snow is a complex discussion, that rutt and I wrote about several times over the past two years. In short, snow is whatever color is reflecting off of it, or illuminating it. Hence, the pink snow from the Christmas lights in my first image.

The snow man is a a throw away snapshot. I enjoyed it because I was trying to keep the highlights entirely captured without blowing them in that inflated tungsten lighted balloon. I felt I succeeded in capturing it ambience, that is the best I could hope for.

The fence might have been better if I had cropped the top more, but overall I liked it - the lights were not real bright on it in real life, but dimmer, and warmer and I liked that also.

The Italian restaurant was a snapshot of where the family ate the other night to celebrate my younger son's 28'th birthday. I liked the treelights, and the neon signs.

My smuggy was not near as good as ones I have seen Nikolai capture - but it was cold and I was ready to quit for the night. I should know to quit while ahead.

Merry Christmas, Antonio, to you and your family. May you all have a happy and prosperous New Year.

Art Scott

thumbThis is a great series of photos....the fence is fantasticbow......as for snow being pure bright white...yeah in the movies....I see grey snow all the time if we get a truly white snow it because the air is finally clean again, for a day or two and it also means I can breathe easily again :D

Thanx for sharing

I am still crying over selling my Konica Minolta A2 as it made lighting like this so much easier to shoot with its electronic view finder.....gotta get another one.

pathfinder

Hi Art, Merry Christmas

Thanks for your kind words.

Rock

Nice series. I don't miss the snow but it does make for a nice Christmas mood in the images. I noticed that you used an f/stop around 7 or 8 in most of these. Is there a spefic reason for that? Does it give you a specific effect to the image?

I ask because I am still learning and assumed that in low light I would want to use an f/stop that was around 2.8 or maybe even lower. I wondered if this was to balance the light ad dark or something......

Thanks

pathfinder

The reason for f8, is that with a small sensor camera like a Point and Shoot G9, that was the smallest aperture availabe, and hence, the greatest depth of field.

Since I was shooting on a tripod, length of exposure really was not an issue with regard to sharpness of the image, so I wanted to maximize DOF. Hence, f8. This would be rather like f16 on a 35mm camera with a larger sensor/film size.