How To Make Holiday Lights Look Good in Photos?

Photographing holiday lights is one of our favorite items to photograph this holiday season. Photographing Christmas lights on and around your Christmas tree may seem like somewhat a daunting task. After all, you will be photographing Christmas lights and want to take amazing images which can handle all the ambient light from your Christmas tree and decorations. If you allow too much light to enter your camera’s image sensor with slow shutter speed resulting in a long exposure, you may face some washed and blurry images. Conversely, if you are shooting your Christmas light photos in a low light condition, such as turning off all of the ambient light in your living room besides for the ornamentations on your Christmas tree, you may want to utilize a long exposure as it will allow for the Christmas lights to be fully taken in and is a great way to create those washed out bokeh effect backgrounds.

If you want to take full effect of getting the best image quality out of your photos this holiday season, there are many camera manufacturers which make tremendous DSLR mirrorless full frame cameras, drones with amazing gimbal based axis camera systems, making this a great time of year to get your hands on some awesome tech at discounted holiday prices.

Getting superb still images and videos during the holiday season of your loved ones to sit around together, enjoying the wonderful holiday lights deep in conversation and laughter will be great memories to look back on. Beginners in the photography field will appreciate the photography tips and tutorials to get amazing image quality in all their shows of tree lights and light displays this Christmas. In addition, there are cameras and lenses geared towards beginners, moderate professionals and full-on professional photographers which are invaluable to getting good Christmas lights photos.

Besides having a DSLR camera and lens which are crucial, there are many other items which make for some of the best holiday gifts this season. As mentioned with the holiday savings, now is a great time to get your hands on some of these items.

Having tutorials, especially for beginners will also be extremely beneficial when photographing holiday lights. With the photography tips we will provide below when paired with some of the different equipment recommended, light photography for the holidays should come second nature to you. This includes if you are going about getting your holiday lights ready for photography in a DIY fashion without having to hire a professional holiday photographer.

Photographing Tutorials and Tips

First Steps

Go ahead and pick up a great digital camera, point and shoot or DSLR camera with a vast and versatile feature set. You can use autofocus which is great for beginners and the camera will automatically adjust the in-camera settings based off your photography scene. If you feel more comfortable or are a more advanced photographer, you may want to consider shooting in manual mode. This will give you full control of the camera settings, including ISO, aperture opening and focal length. Professional photographers will often shoot in manual mode to gain the control over the settings for their shooting environment.

Now that you have a good DSLR camera, it is time to explore some of the best lenses this holiday season. These can range from the type of photography you are looking to take. You can get an all-around good everyday prime lens, telephoto lens and macro lens for great close ups of your holiday lights. A wide-angle lens will give you a larger depth of field view so you can ensure that everyone and all the items you want in your exposure appear there. Ensure that you place a top notch flash with your camera and lens setup for those low light situations.

It is important to note, if you purchase an interchangeable lens camera it means you can attach a lens either from the same manufacturer as your camera or a different one. If you choose to with a lens from a different manufacturer than that of your camera, be sure to check the type of mounting system your camera uses for its lenses. If it is different, you may need a mounting adapter to ensure that your lens of choice fits.

Try taking your Christmas light photos using a lower ISO setting like ISO 100 which is found in the camera settings. This ISO is great for daytime shooting of your Christmas tree and other holiday lights, restricting the amount of light that enters your cameras sensor. Or you can use a higher number ISO 400 for overcast days where there is less ambient light entering your shooting scene. This will depend on available light sources in photography scene, as you may be shooting in low light. If you are taking night photography of your holiday lights an ISO 800 number may be more appropriate. When referencing ISO, a low ISO, the better. A higher ISO may have some graininess and image distortion appear in your exposures.

Next Steps

If you are out an about this holiday season, go ahead and photograph a home with beautiful Christmas lights, try and shoot during the blue hour. The blue hour is the time of day before sunrise and after sunset when the sky has a deep, blue color. This will set for some amazing backgrounds with a blue hue around the holiday lights you photograph. This will really set the scene of the holiday season.

If you take your still images with a wide aperture setting of f/1.4 with a slow shutter speed of 1/200, you get a long exposure which allows for more natural light and ambient light to hit your camera’s sensor. This is good to utilize when shooting in low light conditions. Getting that longer exposure is one of the benefits of shooting with a slower shutter speed. You can also get some cool looking starbursts around your images with a glowing star around your holiday lights.

We have noticed that when shooting in a handheld scenario, there may be blur and camera shake with your photography. Therefore, in addition to your camera and lens having tremendous stabilization systems from IBIS to optical and mechanical hardware, we still highly recommend that you investigate a tripod for your holiday photography.

Keep an eye on your photography surroundings. A camera flash may be needed to ensure that there is enough ambient light to get your desired shot. If you have the flash set when shooting holiday lights like Christmas tree lights, you may have too much distortion of the image, especially when there is an abundance of natural and ambient light. In these scenarios you will want to keep the flash off, to reduce any further glare or washed-out exposures.

Tungsten lamps or incandescent lights with incandescent bulbs create an extremely warm light source for a coy environment. Ensure your camera and lens are prepared for this type of light source which is common and is often found in an older type of lighting setup. Set your camera’s auto white balance to compensate for this type of ambient light which will make your exposures appear in accurate vibrant colors and the white balance is set to keep white items in your exposures just that.

Remember that no matter what camera and lens you use, you want to download the associated app for that specific device which can be found on your iPhone’s appstore or the Google Play store for Android. Your cameras Wi-Fi should allow you to download post processing software such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop in addition to using the editing software in their app.

If you decide to shoot in a RAW format which allows for more post processing and editing than your standard JPEG file, you will find so many templates and additional software functions for these types of images. These are great to get the best image quality as you get ready to post your holiday photos on your social media page.

Conclusion

When taking photos of holiday lights, especially all the gorgeous ornaments and Christmas lights around your Christmas tree, or just walking around the neighborhood wanting to vlog about your experiences, these can show off the gorgeous tree lined streets with their holiday decorations all lit up. Remember to utilize our photography tips, keep an eye on what your lighting conditions and adjust your camera settings accordingly. Follow these tutorials and get some of the best holiday photography gear to get the most out of photographing your holiday lights.

Enjoy the Holiday Season!