Christmas lights... (and lost my enthusiasm)

littlemonster

littlemonster

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Gemma
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Ok, I've stopped taking photos, I think just due to the atrocious weather and such... but thinking tis soon the season of people putting lights all over their houses, and some around here used to do some spectacular displays.

So... I was just wondering if anyone had advice of how to best photograph them - the problem I forsee is that unlike fireworks you need the background to show more, but I don't want the lights ridiculously overexposed...

I did think of flash but really not sure if that'll work.

So... advice/thoughts?


And thoughts of other things to photograph when it's 5-8C, wet, windy and grey? :thinking:
 
I had a go at photographing the Christmas tree last year.I got best results by setting the camera to capture the lights without over exposing them too much, then using flash (body and two slaves) to fill in the rest of the tree.

You are going to need a very powerful flash for a house though.
 
To be honest it depends on how many lights there are, and what they are spilled lighting if you know what I mean, also if lights/each bulb are flashing different colours, hard to explain, a longer exposure would give white lights, I would suggest bracketing, I know a house that is massive lights I will go tomorrow, and see what I found and let you know and an image of course :thumbs:
 
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fabs said:
Anything indoors. :p

Seriously, have you thought about still life? So many things that can be done in a small space and not weather dependant.
Click to expand...

:lol: :lol: :lol: This makes me think of a comment by someone that I count as a friend on one of his photo's, he leaves in the USA in Oregon to be precise and specialises in landscapes etc and I once commented that the weather over here had been rubbish, rain all week and he said to me that if he didn't take his camera out in rubbish weather he would never take his camera out :lol:

To the op's question, I would think maybe f/8 about a 2-5 second exposure ISO1-200 would do it for domestic light's

and for displays such as municipal displays you can sometimes go a little longer such as this image I did last year, not claiming it's perfect ;)


8095 LSPA Parade by mwhcvt, on Flickr

General setting were:
80 seconds / ISO100 / f/32.00

for the record I would not use quite those settings now, maybe 30 seconds f/16 :D

Matt
MWHCVT
 
littlemonster said:
So... I was just wondering if anyone had advice of how to best photograph them - the problem I forsee is that unlike fireworks you need the background to show more, but I don't want the lights ridiculously overexposed...
Click to expand...

Sounds like a prime case for 'golden hour' shooting to me. Shortly after sunset.

You've still got some ambient light around to fill so you don't need to blow the illuminations (and lose a lot of their own colour) to pull the rest of the scene's exposure up.

As the ambient light drops while the lights output is fixed, you get to shift the balance of one against the other till you hit your ideal point.
 
MWHCVT said:
General setting were:
80 seconds / ISO100 / f/32.00

for the record I would not use quite those settings now, maybe 30 seconds f/16 :D

Matt
MWHCVT
Click to expand...


I always well mostly go for F11,(sometimes above, its a balance) ISO 100, and how ever many secs it takes, to get what you want, take several well more shots, changing the F, and shutter
 
Lots of great help here, thanks guys - seems a medium to long exposure is the general consensus!

Yea I've thought about still life photography but so far find it far less inspiring than other types! Maybe need to give it a fair chance sometime soon :D
 
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