See all these cool Christmas tree photos on Facebook but scratching your head on how they did them?
Here are a few pointers….
1) If you have a point and shoot camera ….turn off the flash. Yes, you head me. No flash. Flash is going to illuminate your photo, wash out the color and the lights on the tree. Without flash your camera should shoot a slower shutter speed and a higher ISO to get the glow of the Christmas tree.
2) Have a DSL camera….turn it off Auto mode (select Shutter Speed Priority if you are not familiar with Manual or full Manual if you feel comfortable), make sure your your flash is down. Crank your ISO up. Mine is at 2000 here and I probably could have gone higher to give even more of a glow. And slow your shutter speed down….these are at 1/100 s (yep, you are going to get blur if you are shooting with kids …especially a 4 and 2-year old who just got back from The Muppets movie and were jacked-up on sugar). What you are doing is pulling/metering off the light of the tree. I wanted the focus on the boys with the glow of the tree so I opened up a good deal and shot these at 1.8. If you want more of the tree in focus then close it down to 4 or so (but you will need to increase ISO and slow shutter down to compensate the loss of light).
Happy shooting!
