How to Photograph Christmas Lights Indoors and Outside
13 Tips for Photographing Holiday Lights
How to Photograph Christmas Lights Indoors and Exterior
Christmas lights rarely look as nice in photographs as they do in real life, but it doesn't have to be that fashion. Whether yous desire to certificate your own holiday decorations or merely beloved pictures of twinkling lights, our tips volition help you shoot vacation scenes like a pro.
Credit: Lacey Johnson
Shoot at sunset
The most mutual fault people make when shooting Christmas lights is waiting until it's completely dark outside. When there's no lite left in the sky, your holiday lights will appear to be floating in a sea of blackness. The best fourth dimension to shoot is at sunset, when the natural lite is bright enough to illuminate the edges of buildings and copse, merely non so bright that information technology drowns out the artificial lights. If you're in a big city, you may be able to shoot later at night due to light pollution, just the heaven won't accept the aforementioned blueish color.
Credit: Lacey Johnson
Outsmart your smartphone
Smartphones are notoriously bad at low-calorie-free photography. When you lot're shooting Christmas lights, the internal meter in the smartphone commonly picks upward on the bright points of light and produces an underexposed epitome with night shadows. To avoid this, effort borer on a shadowy portion of the image displayed on your preview screen. This volition tell your telephone to adjust the camera settings for that area instead, and the preview image should instantly become brighter.
Some other option is to download a 3rd-party smartphone app that allows you lot to manually control your shutter speed. We suggest Photographic camera FV-five for Android or Tiresome Shutter Cam for the iPhone.
Credit: Lacey Johnson
Don't use flash
Holiday lights and flash photography don't mix. The flash volition not only make your scene look apartment and uninteresting but also overpower the soft glow coming from your Christmas lights.
At that place'due south one exception to this dominion: when you want to capture a person standing in the foreground of your image. You lot can utilize the flash to illuminate only your subject while keeping the shutter speed slow enough to capture the glowing Christmas lights in the groundwork. If you desire to take an indoor portrait in front end of the Christmas tree, we recommend lighting your subject with a lamp instead of a flash and then that y'all don't overilluminate the scene.
Credit: Paul Nicholson
Illuminate dark shadows
Shooting holiday lights indoors is catchy because they aren't powerful enough to illuminate the surrounding expanse. This means you may go a lovely pic of the lights on your Christmas tree, simply everything else in the image volition expect dark and murky. To accomplish a more balanced look, try placing lamps but outside the frame to add together more ambience lite to the scene. Hiding a lamp behind your tree volition also add depth to your image and assistance the tree stand out from its surroundings.
Credit: Josh Willink/Pixabay
Use a tripod
Tripods tin can be cumbersome to carry around, but using one will significantly ameliorate your pictures. Depression-light scenes crave ho-hum shutter speeds, and whatsoever shutter speed below 1/lx of a second could produce a blurry epitome if you're holding the camera in your easily. Ideally, images of holiday lights should be shot with a shutter speed of between 1 second and 1/60 of a 2nd, depending on your f-stop and other variables.
For maximum versatility, we recommend a lightweight tripod with a ball head, such as the Zomei Q555 ($75), which is portable yet sturdy enough to support a DSLR camera. If you're shooting with your smartphone, be certain to selection up a universal adapter, such equally this $viii one by Vastar (pictured above).
Credit: Lacey Johnson
Use a low ISO
Unless yous forgot your tripod and need to hold your camera in your hand, it'southward best to avoid using a high ISO considering it can create noise and graininess in the shadows of your image. For optimal clarity, continue your ISO setting under 400 when shooting Christmas lights. If you're using a smartphone, y'all may need to manually lower your ISO past using a tertiary-party app.
Credit: Lacey Johnson
Manually choose the best shutter speed
The key to producing a neat image of Christmas lights is to cull a shutter speed that strikes the correct balance betwixt highlights and shadows. If the shutter speed is also fast, you lot will showtime losing details in the shadows of your image. If the shutter speed is besides slow, your lights will wait blown-out, and the sky may start to resemble daylight (if you're shooting at dusk). To discover the perfect exposure, nosotros recommend shooting in transmission manner and testing a diversity of shutter speeds.
Credit: Lacey Johnson
Choose the right white balance
The white residual you choose — or the 1 your camera chooses, if you're using car white balance — can significantly modify the look of your image. Vacation lighting displays often contain a mix of white, blue, red, light-green or even rainbow lights. Take the time to manually bike through your white-residuum settings to see which option all-time suits the scene you lot're photographing. If you're shooting at dusk and want the sky to look actress blue, be sure to utilise the tungsten (or calorie-free bulb) setting on your camera or smartphone.
Credit: Brigitte Tohm
Utilise a built-in timer or cable release
Even when y'all use a tripod, information technology'south still possible to shake the camera when you press the shutter push. A simple solution is to use a cablevision release, an internal timer or a wireless remote to burn down the camera without touching it. Setting the timer delay on your phone or camera to 5 seconds should prevent any vibrations.
Credit: Lacey Johnson
Blur the lights
Remember that Christmas lights don't always have to exist sharp. By focusing on a person or object in the foreground, you can use the out-of-focus lights to create a dreamy holiday atmosphere.
Credit: Pixabay
Shoot in RAW
Ideally, you should shoot holiday lights in RAW format using a DSLR or mirrorless camera. Not only will your images exist higher quality, just you can easily heighten RAW files to bring out more than detail in the highlights and shadows using software such every bit Adobe Camera Raw (congenital into Photoshop) or Lightroom. This is particularly important when capturing Christmas lights considering they tend to have deep shadows and blown-out points of lite.
Credit: Lacey Johnson
Add together your own light painting
Lite painting is a fun and like shooting fish in a barrel way to spice upward your holiday photos. You tin can illuminate specific objects with a flashlight, spell out the words "Merry Christmas" or make creative light trails with sparklers or lite painting brushes. To ensure you lot stay invisible, go on moving, and endeavor not to illuminate yourself with the flashlight. Think to employ a shutter speed that's dull enough to allow you lot to run through the scene.
Credit: Chrzaszczewski Pawel
Get creative
In that location are endless means to photograph Christmas lights. Don't be agape to break the rules and see what unique images you can come upwards with.
Credit: Pixabay
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Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/how-to-photograph-christmas-lights,review-4969.html
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