Christmas Light Tips

Tips for Shooting Christmas Lights



1)  you might think that the darker the better but I’ve found that as the sun is setting is really the best time; you can see more of the environment and it really gives you a better sense of where you are; when you shoot in pitch black it’s just little dots in the dark.  However I must say the late night with the full moon worked fantastically this year at the Brookgreen Garden’s Night of 1000 Candles.

2)  TRIPOD! Any time you are shooting with very little light and the situation requires that you not use a flash a tripod is a must!  otherwise everything will be blurry especially since if you want nice big star-bursts for your lights you will want to stop your aperture way down.. even as far as f22 if you can manage; this gives you the twinkling effect.



3)  Shoot in raw:  the white balance can be very tricky so if you can i’d shoot in raw you that you have lots of wiggle room later.

4) Atypical angles:  This is true of all types of photography, I like to try to shoot at least some shots from locations other than normal head level … I think your brain automatically says “ I know this view already.. it’s not interesting to me” but if you shoot from really high or really low it catches your eye and gets some attention subconsciously.



5) This year I plan on trying using slow sync on the flash which I hear can work very well for getting some subtle illumination; I'm also thinking that if I'm willing to play with it HDR might work well for Christmas lights; though I'd think it would take some manual adjustment in photoshop after creating the tone mapped HDR image.





















Anyways … Merry Christmas and HAPPY SHOOTING!