Taking a pretty Christmas tree photo
November 15, 2012
Last Christmas I was DETERMINED to capture a beautiful moment with my kids and my ginormous Christmas tree. I posted my photos on my personal facebook page and got a lot of great comments so I thought I’d share how I did it, so you can do it too. All you need is a DSLR camera and a great lens. I used my Canon 5D Mark II and 50mm 1.4 lens.
1. The set up involved turning off all the lights in the room and nearby rooms, leaving just the tree lights on (of course).
2. You won’t be using your flash for this photo. We can all agree that camera flash and Christmas trees don’t play well together.
3. You’ll want to turn your camera on Manual Mode (It’s the “M” on the dial)
4. You will need to set your ISO as high as it will go. I had mine set at 3200
5. Turn the shutter speed down to around 1/40 sec. With that being set so low, any fast movements will blur so it’s super important to get the people in the photo to be as still as possible. That’s really the hardest part when you have kids or animals. You also have to be as still as possible. I used a tripod but you can use a piece of furniture to stabilize the camera for the shot.
6. Set your aperture value to f/2.0 (if your lens doesn’t got that low, try the lowest number). You can play around with this.
7. Make sure the children involved understand what the amazing prize will be if they cooperate;-) This was the ONE time I told my 2 year old to touch the ornaments. Girl got focused and I hit the jackpot.
8. Take lots and lots of photos!
The photos above were not edited, other than being resized and slightly sharpened for web.
So, now you’re ready to take a beautiful Christmas tree photo that your facebook friends can ooooh and ahhhh over:-) Feel free to comment if you have questions and let me know how it turns out for you!
6 Comments
Hey! Love the picture! I tried taking my own this evening using your tips and it came out very dark. I am using a Nikon D3100 and tried both of my lenses: 55-200mm and 18-55mm. The only thing I couldn’t figure out how to do was set the aperture. Is that controlled by the focus? I even thought maybe you just have more lights on your tree…but then again I have 700 on a 7 ft. tree. Any additional tips would be helpful. Thank you.
Elizabeth, I did set my aperture to 2.0 to allow more light in. If you’re aperture doesn’t go that low, you may need to bump your shutter speed down lower and your ISO up higher to let more light in. The higher you go with the ISO, the grainier it will be though, so test it out. I’m not familiar with that camera and where the settings are located but I think your manual should tell you or my fav, google. I hope you’re able to get the shot:-)
Elizabeth,
Using your 18-55mm lens would be the closest to the 50mm that Shannon is using. The benefit of the 50mm lens is that it’s great in low light, there is no zoom on it so you’re stepping in or out to your subjects. My suggestion to you would be use the 18-55mm, set your zoom to where you like, leave it there then follow Shannon’s tips. As for aperture it’s set by using the finger dial on your camera. That dial is usually used for both the shutter speed and aperture so you might have to hold down a button to get it into aperture ‘mode’. My number one tip for anyone starting with a DSLR is know your camera. Read, read and reread your manual to know what all the buttons do. It will make it so much easier when applying it to the concepts of photography.
This are amazing. I am so gonna try this. Now if I can just find my tripod.
Love this. Such great tips! Can’t wait to start taking some photos
Hello! I really liked your X-mas tree photos so I followed your instructions and took some photos of my own tree. I am really pleased with the result. You can check it out here on my facebook fan page. Merry Christmas!
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151144502310796&set=a.327526995795.157949.308671575795&type=1&theater¬if_t=like