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Christmas Lighting, Capturing the Holiday Feeling.

Image 1

Okay so it is that time of year again. Everyone is shopping, trees going up in the living room, and lights of all colors are everywhere. I have always wanted to capture the way I feel about Christmas, the joy of the lights, But every time I took a picture of a Christmas tree, or lights, they just looked dull and plain, if you could see them at all. Does this sound familiar? Well then you are in luck, because I am going to give you a couple of ideas to capture those beautiful lights and colors.
First thing you need to do is get rid of the flash. Not this is not a good formula for portraits of people or pets, unless than can hold perfectly still for 10 seconds of more. I know that doesn't seem that long, but it really is. Second thing you are going to need is a tripod. The third is one light. For this example I am using a lightbox that I built out of a light stand, and foam cooler, and two photo bulbs rated at 200w each.


Image 2

First I am going to show you what happens if you use no outside light at all, just the light from the tree... I had my camera set at a 3 seconds shutter speed, with my f/stop at 16.

Now I didn't like the color very well. The lights looked pretty cool and was close to what I wanted, but it was way too warm and unnatural (image 1). So I grabbed my lightbox. I knew that direct light would be way too much, and to keep from overexposing I would have to turn up my shutter speed, which would kill the effect I was looking for with the Christmas lights on the tree. So I turned the light away from the tree, pointed directly at the wall to the right of the tree (maybe 6 feet away). The lightbox was about 3 inches from the wall. I then set my shutter speed to 10 seconds, and my aperture to 30. Yep that's right 30... And bam! there it was; the image I had been looking for (image 2).

Image 4

Image 3

 I went on to shoot some of the ornaments on the tree as well, but this was a bit different. to get the proper coloring and keep the effect I tried something a little different, but along the same line.

This time I wanted the ornament to show very clearly, and keep the star burst effect on the lights. So to do this I kept the light where it was. Moved in closer to the ornament and set my focus on it. The camera settings stayed the same. a 10 second shutter speed, with a f/stop of 30. Now here is where things change up. After I released the shutter, I counted off 3 seconds and then flipped the lightbox off (image 4). I loved the results so I pulled the camera back to where I started and shot the tree one more time using the same method, and I loved it even more (image 3).

So there you go, give it a try, and see what you can come up with...