Happy Winter Solstice! In honor of the day with the least amount of day light, I thought I would offer up some tips on how to take great pictures of your christmas tree with a DSLR. (I also posted an “iphoneography” version on instagram!)

But first! A quick fun story about our tree. So growing up, my mom and I made really pretty, themed trees. Always white lights and all coordinating ornaments. My favorite was when we did a purple and silver theme (but back then those were my favorite colors.) When Matt was little, his family’s tree was all colored lights and meaningful ornaments they made at school or got from friends or family. So when it came time to decide on a tree for our house, we had very different ideas. We ended up doing a perfect compromise (as it should be!) going with white lights and meaningful ornaments. Every year, we try to get an ornament from something fun we did that year. So our tree is full of memories of our life together. (The santa hat topper was kind of an accident one year as a holding spot for a star, but we ended up loving it and we do the santa hat topper every year now. LOL!)

Let It Shine!

Wait until it’s dark and turn out all of the other lights in the room so your camera only tries to soak up the light from the tree! That also means NO FLASH. Don’t even think about it! This is also a good time to tidy up the space around your tree (maybe take down any big pictures on your wall of flowers or a beach or anything else non-seasonal) UNLESS. It’s gift wrapped. Because I like to do that to pictures in my house this time of year.

Set Up Your Settings

You’ll want your ISO nice and high so your camera is extra sensitive to light, mine was at 6400 (don’t be too afraid of grain, but if you want less grain, 800 is ok too, just try not to have it up above 400!) Get your aperture nice and wide open to get all of that light in the lens. I like going as low as possible, but then depending on how far away you are, you might not get a lot in focus. Mine was at 1.4. Finally, set up the shutter speed to get you in the middle (or slightly above) the exposure meter. If your SS is lower than 100, consider resting your arm/camera on something sturdy or using a tripod to avoid camera shake (unless you want to try to spell out something with the lights… but that would look bananas with a whole tree.) Mine was set to 1/200, but I still used a shelf to steady me just to be sure.

Get Yummy Bokeh

Those lovely light orbs in the background comes from being close to your subject (the present or kid or whatever!) and having the tree in the background, at least 3-4 feet behind the subject. Keep your aperture wide open and focus on the subject!

 

Silhouettes

This works kind of the opposite from getting bokeh, so instead of focusing on your subject, focus on and expose for your tree to be bright and in focus, and your subject will be darker.

Have Some Fun!

I cut out a tiny heart, about a centimeter wide or so, from a black circle of paper and taped it to my lens to get my bokeh heart shaped! You can do this with a ton of shapes.  I did stars too!

Let your light shine and have a very happy and safe holiday season everyone!!