Photographing Christmas Lights

They glow and sparkle and can be virtually irresistable to a photographer. Taking pictures of outdoor Christmas lights is tricky, but it can be done – with some amazing results if you do it right. If you walk through a few steps outlined below, and are willing to get a little creative with your settings and experiment, you’ll be able to get some gorgeous Christmas light shots as well.

As is usually the case with odd lighting situations, there is no particularly right answer on how to approach the problem. I can point you in the right direction, but playing and understanding why you’re doing the things you’re doing is key to getting the shot.

Ideally, we’ll want to try and shoot our lights in twilight. The biggest problem most people face with Christmas light shots is waiting until it’s totally dark. We can do it at night too, but by shooting in twilight, we’ll be able to more easily get some context in the image and balance the lights with our surrounding. To do this, we’ll shoot in a Manual exposure mode so that we can have full control over the settings, and we may use some flash if we also want to see some of the house or the surroundings.

Pick your Lenses

The lens choice is really up to you. If you plan on shooting a wide array of lights, and you want to get the whole house or tree in the shot, you’ll likely want something a little wider (~20mm). If you plan on singling out a small group of lights or one in particular, you may want a lens that’s a little longer (~100mm). Whichever you choose, your lens should let you get down to f/4 or so.

Tripod

You’ll definitely want to use a tripod for this. Since we’ll be shooting with slower shutter speeds, make sure you have a good solid support for your camera.

Exposure Mode

We’re going to be taking over both the aperture and shutter speed control for this shot, so we’ll want the camera in Manual mode.

Like I said, we’ll be shooting with shutter speeds that are fairly slow. However, you don’t want them to get too slow. The problem with shooting lights on an outdoor tree or house is that you may encounter some wind that will flap the lights around a little. Any movement during the exposure will result in some blurry lights or streaking. Too fast, though, and we’re not going to get the amount of light we want. Too slow, however, and we overexpose for the lights and blow them out. To start out, try shooting somewhere between 2 seconds to 1/4 second.

As far as aperture goes, if you want that starry look to your shots, try a wider aperture (between f/4 and f/6.7).

Choose an ISO

We’ll be shooting in low light, so we’ll need to boost our ISO a little bit. We don’t want to go too high, for fear of accumulating too much digital noise. However, we can always deal with a bit of noise later in post processing, but if your ISO isn’t high enough, we may not be able to get the shot we’re looking for. I’d suggest starting at about 400 ISO and moving between there and 800 ISO.

Use the Timer or a Remote

If your camera has an Anti-Shake Mirror option, certainly use it. This is just the kind of situation it’s designed for. If not, that’s okay – but you should at least use the self-timer or a remote to minimize any camera shake that may result from pressing the shutter button.

Set your White Balance

Initially you’ll want to shoot in the Tungsten (or Incandescent) white balance mode. That should look best.

Shoot in RAW

By shooting in the RAW file mode, we’ll be able to adjust the image easier in post processing if we want to tweak our white balance or adjust the tone. This means while our Tungsten choice for white balance might not be dead on, it shouldn’t matter too much because we can make changes to the Raw file.

Employing a Flash

You don’ t need to use a flash, but it will give you a different kind of result that can be appealing. We’re exposing for the lights initially, and trying to get them to look just like we want them using our shutter, aperture, and ISO settings. Depending on the time of day and other ambient lighting, we may get some of the surroundings in the shot or not. Most likely, if it gets too dark, you’ll end up getting your lights just right, but everything else will look black. Flash will help cure that. If you’re using an external flash that has a test fire button, take it off the hotshoe and set it on manual. Use a low power setting and while your exposure is being taken, fire a few test flashes at your subject. By doing this, we’re effectively “painting with light”, which will take some playing to get right. Start at 1/32 power (or however low it can go) and work your way up to 1/16, then 1/8 etc – if your subject isn’t getting enough light. With a built-in or popup flash, you’ll also be able to set it manually, but you’ll only get a single firing – so again it may require becoming a little creative to get it to look just right.

By the time you’re done, you should be able to get some beautiful Christmas light photos. Let us know how it goes!