5 Practical Steps for Shooting Perfect Christmas Lights

Christmas is just around the corner! It is the one of the most exciting moments in the whole year. To better capture this amazing time with your camera, we Fotor- Online photo editor here provides you five suggestions for you to shoot amazing Christmas lights.

•  Timing

Christmas lights are always beautiful at night, but getting a camera to grasp all the details of the setting can be difficult. Shooting as dusk is the perfect time to see holiday lights while adding textural contrast from things like buildings and plants. Shooting when it is too dark out can result in a sea of black, but there are things you can do to prevent this: turn on a slow shutter speed and make sure to keep completely still as any slight move can ruin the photo. Another option for cameras is turning up your ISO, which will brighten the photograph, but be warned that too high of an ISO will create too much “noise” in your image.

•  Subject

Use lights as the main subject to create a bokeh effect. With the aperture set wide open (f/4 or wider), manually focus the camera so the lights are out of focus. Alternatively while using a wide aperture, select a different subject such as a wreath or ornament, focus in on it and make sure the lights are blurred in the background.

• Reflections

Reflected light is light that bounces off your subject, foreground or other objects in a scene. Using a reflective foreground lets in more light for a brighter shot. Position your camera so that light from things like ice, water or ornaments reflects back into the lens. A simple way to get a nice reflection shot in by taking a photograph of an ornament hanging inside the tree.

• Location

Whether shooting indoors or outdoors location is the biggest aspect for Christmas photography. While shooting indoors avoid using flash, instead use a secondary source for light that keeps the room dim but not dark. Outside shooting includes elaborate lighting and decorations on houses, streets and stores. If you want to capture lights only be sure to turn flash off.

•  Test

Try everything and make adjustments as you go along. One camera setting won’t be enough to suit several scenes of shooting. Take advantage of your digital camera by shooting scenes multiple times. Finally, using photo-shop to touch up photographs can turn simple photography into something more spectacular. Photo effects from Fotor such as Warm Winter, Christmas and Festive give photographs that winter feel with ease. Alternatively, the magic dust effect can glisten a photograph with snowflakes or pixie dust; winterizing your photographs.

Edited with Fotor’s photo effects: Christmas

Edited with Fotor’s photo effect: Magic Brush

Christmas is the time for family reunion. So it is important to take a few minutes to shoot better photos for you and your family. You can also use your Christmas photos to design Christmas cards or other photo cards and send them to your family and friends. (More about photo card making inspiration, you can check this article link.)  It would be a better Christmas celebration way to share your best love and best wishes for your family and friends. Putting those Christmas cards on the Christmas tree, it will be a good and meaningful Christmas decoration! You also can use those photo card to be as your Christmas wallpaper on your desktop!

Please share this article to your Facebook if you think it is helpful.

Merry Christmas!