- Today on The Slanted Lens we're getting into the holiday spirit and headed
out to take pictures of Christmas lights.
Watch til the end of the video, don't miss on the give away.
Hi, this is J. P. Morgan. Today on The Slanted Lens we're going to show you
things you need to know to take pictures of Christmas lights. There are just two or
three basic things you need to understand. We're going to share those with you so
you'll be ready to go out to take pictures of Christmas lights this holiday season.
When shooting Christmas lights, time of day is critical. Christmas lights are
constant. They're not going to change. They have an exposure that won't change.
But daylight is very bright and as daylight drops there's going to be a point
where the daylight crosses the flat line of the Christmas lights.
During that 10 or 15 minutes is when you get most beautiful pictures of Christmas
lights because you have just a little bit of ambient light on the house, so the
house isn't pitch black, and you have a nice exposure on your Christmas lights.
But again, you've got to watch your daylight. As it goes down and gets darker
and darker and darker until it hits that time where it's exposed correctly to
your tungsten light or the Christmas lights on the house.
Dusk is a perfect time to photograph Christmas lights because we want just a
little bit of light left in the sky. When I say dusk, it's really late dusk, almost
dark. You need to find an aperture and a shutter speed and then just simply wait
until the ambient light matches your Christmas lights and then you shoot that
short real window time when they're matching.
Sometimes it's only 10 or 15 minutes.
3. Get a tripod. What are you, crazy? You can't take pictures at night of Christmas
lights without a tripod. I've seen people try, doesn't work. Use a tripod.
4. Don't use the on camera flash, it's not going to do much and it's just going
to be annoying. Turn that thing off, you're going to do this
entirely on manual.
Camera Settings
The camera settings are critical. First wight balance. White balance is very
important. You can set it on tungsten or daylight. They both will look good and can
be good in different situations. I usually set mine on daylight and then I just allow
the Christmas lights to be a little bit warm. But here's the important tip. Shoot
raw, because now when you get back to your studio, or your house, or your computer,
you can put that image on the computer and you can change the color balance to
whatever you want it to be. Daylight, tungsten, or whatever you choose and it'll
make it work. So, shoot on raw.
But when I'm in the field I usually shoot on daylight and then later on
I can change that. ISO
You're going to see your ISO 620 or higher. I start at 620 ISO on the mark
three, that's a great place to start when it starts to get dark.
Aperture and Shutter Speed
I set my aperture at 5.0 and my shutter speed at one eighth of a second. This was
a good exposure on the Christmas lights but the ambient light was way too bright
when I started out. I just kept shooting until lights on the sky became more and
more properly exposed. It's just a matter of waiting, and watching,
and shooting, until they come together.
Eventually you're going to lose all that nice light on the sky and your Christmas
lights on your house can become a little too dark. Here's a couple of those shots
after a prime time of shooting passed. Just not near as nice looking. I hope you
have a great holiday season and take some great photographs.
Our next lesson is how to combine strobes with great Holiday boka.
Keep those cameras rolling and keep on clicking.
Ho, ho, ho! Happy Holidays from The Slanted Lens. We're giving away $5,000...
No, more than $5,000 worth of equipment
for the holidays. Make sure you go to The Slanted Lens and sign up. Over 50 people
are going to win prizes. So go to theslantedlens.com and sign up. Make sure
you win something from The Slanted Lens this holiday season.
♪ [Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock] ♪
Ho, ho, ho!
All right when you're shooting Christmas lights, it's important to go like this
because if you don't and Kate can't make fun of me later when she's editing.
All right, let's get going here.