Every year one of my main photo goals is to take a fabulous picture of my tree and to master pretty bokeh using Christmas lights. I’m not sure that I’ve quite mastered these specific skills yet, but here are a few things that I’ve learned.
First up is my picture of tree with sparkly lights. For this shot, I waited until it was completely dark outside, set up my tripod and used the following settings: f4.0, 1/10 shutter speed, and 3200 ISO. Depending on your camera and what lens you’re using, settings will vary. The main thing is using the tripod so that your photo will still be crisp, but the shutter speed slow enough to capture the sparkle.
A fun, artistic picture to take is one that highlights your pretty lights and turns them into bokeh. For this shot, I set my camera on manual focus, then (un)focused until the bokeh was the size I wanted and snapped the picture. My settings for this picture were as follows: f2.0, 1/30 shutter speed and 2000 ISO.
My friend Christine set up a make-shift studio in her living room to capture some bokeh using Christmas lights, and I asked if I could share her process with you.
And the adorable resulting picture
For more tips, here are a few articles I found:
Clickin’ Moms: Christmas Tree Lights
christine says
I love the lights on your tree Melissa!
Michelle Jordan says
I have done this set up before , never thought of putting felt over the lights. Thank you for sharing Christine :) Michelle Jordan
jessica says
This is great! I’m going to try that this year.
Michella Fuquay says
Great DIY idea, got all of supplies so I could do it for this years Christmas card :) ! Thanks for the idea, I love it!