How to take photographs of Christmas trees and Christmas lights.

December 22, 2016 2:50 PM

I almost never take photos, but I'd like to take a few this season for sentimental reasons. I can take photos of a Christmas tree (and have), but I am embarrassed to admit that I haven't the faintest clue how to take a photograph showing the tree covered in lights. The photos I take never show the lights. In fact, you can't even tell whether the lights are on or not. How can I get the lights to appear in the photo? The camera I'm using is an old A series Canon. I think around 5meg.

I'd also like to ask the same question for taking photos of Christmas lights in my neighborhood.

Thanks.

posted by Beholder to Technology (6 answers total)

This looks like a good tutorial.
posted by willnot at 3:01 PM on December 22, 2016

Can you disable the flash? If the flash goes off then it would illuminate the tree making the lights look less visible.

Also your camera may have different modes like "landscape", "night time" or "fireworks". Give some of them a try as they could give better results then the default one.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:10 PM on December 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Have you tried with both the room lights on and the room lights off, flash on and flash off?

(Room lights on, flash off is what works for me.)
posted by DarlingBri at 3:10 PM on December 22, 2016

Disable the flash and use a long exposure.
posted by Violet Hour at 3:36 PM on December 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

Are the tree lights LED? If so, they're basically flickering faster than your eye can see but in a way that can mess up photos. Petapixel just ran a feature on how to work around it (and there's some general tips as well).
posted by Candleman at 3:45 PM on December 22, 2016

Disable the flash and use a long exposure.

This.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:57 AM on December 23, 2016