How to Photograph Christmas Lights

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How to Photograph Christmas Lights
Author: Worst Christmas Lights

When we talk about balancing light around here, it usually means balancing
ambient with flash. But getting a good photo of holiday lights involves a
different kind of light balancing: Continuous ambient with fading ambient.

You don't need a expensive camera for great results. You can use a very
low cost digital camera and do just fine. You don't even need flash. It all
comes down to what time of the day you shoot. And a few other little
tricks.

Photo by Troy McCullough

The problem with 98% of the photos of Christmas lights is that most people wait until too dark to start shooting. After it gets completely dark, you can
either have the lights or the surroundings properly exposed. But not both.

Conversely, if you were to shoot the lights in the middle of the day, they would
not show up at all. The trick is find the best time(actually there is a whole
range of best times) where the ambient light and the Christmas lights balance.

Photo by David Hobby, Baltimore Sun

Knowing this will ensure that your photos are way better than those of
your neighbors. After all, isn't that what Christmas lights are really about?

How to Do It:

1. Arrive early. The best time to shoot is before it gets totally dark. Arriving
around sunset will give you time to plan your shot before the good light
happens. You may have to ask your subject to turn the lights on early - most
people don't flip them on until the good light is already gone.

2. Compose your photo in such a way as to include as much sky as possible in the
background. Shooting from a low position can help. Even better: If you have your
choice of shooting direction, shoot into the afterglow of the evening sky.

3. Once you get your picture framed, set your camera's white balance for
"tungsten," as if you were shooting indoors without flash. All of those little
lights are tungsten balanced. As a bonus, the tungsten setting will turn your
afterglow sky royal blue once your light balances out. The sky will look great -
even if it is a cloudy evening. And your lights will gleam crystal white. Or
whatever color they are supposed to be.

4. A light (or reflective) foreground, like snow, or a puddle (or the roof of a
car) can give nice foreground interest. See what you can find.

5. Use a tripod or a beanbag to steady your camera. You'll be shooting in the
range of a quarter second to a full second at twilight. If shooting with a phone
or PDA, use both hands to brace the phone against something solid.

6. Now, wait for the light to happen.

Shoot a test shot every minute or so. At first, you'll be exposing for the sky
and the lights will appear unimpressive. Check the back of your camera after
each shot to watch the Christmas lights appear to "come up" as the ambient light
level goes down. (Aren't digital camera great?) Your eye is constantly adjusting
to compensate for the dropping light levels, but the changes will be happening
nonetheless.

Photo by Michael DeHaan

Somewhere in between sunset and full dark, the Christmas lights and the ambient
light will start to mix beautifully. You'll have about a 10-minute window which
will give you a nice series of subtly different lighting variations. Remembering
to keep your camera as still as possible, shooting lots of frames through the
mix light. Ones and zeros are free, so don't be stingy. You do not have much
time. You can delete the duds (or blurred photos) later.

Incidentally, this time of day is when the architectural photographers make the
big bucks. And they are smart enough to tell everyone in their subject building
to leave the lights on that night, too.

Your light will fade very quickly. You will know it is gone when your photos
start looking like the "bad light" photos you used to take.

Now, put your camera away. You still have a few minutes to enjoy the scene with
your eyes. The human eye has the remarkable ability to compress a large dynamic
range into a scene your brain can process. Just relax, soak it in and think
about all of the shopping you have left to do.

This is one of the few times that both shooting pictures and enjoying the moment
do not conflict with each other.

by David for Strobist
">http://strobist.blogspot.com/

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