Christmas Tree Help

[Erinw417]

The other night we set up the Christmas tree and I decided to try and take some pictures of it in the dark with just the tree lights on, however I couldn't get any pics to come out right. They were all very red and there was to much light in the rest of the room. Can anyone suggest some settings? I have a D3000 if that helps.

Thanks.

 

[tirediron]

Do you want images of just the lights, or the tree and the lights? If you want just the lights, then you'll need to spot-meter the lights to start, and adjust your settings after looking at the images on the rear LCD. If you want the tree and lights, then you'll need some supplementary light, such as an off-camera speedlight to reduce the dynamic range between the relatively bright points of light formed by the bulbs, and the much darker green of the tree's foliage.

 

[MrsLittle]

Take your shutter speed down to about 1/50, put your aperture on the smallest number while keeping your focus point on the Tree. Make sure to bump up your ISO until you get a good reading and switch to manual focus- you can try out some pretty neat effects in MF with the look of the lights.

 

[Erinw417]

Thanks guys, I'll try those out.