How do I take night/Christmas light photos like these?

[shillise]

Hi everybody

How do I take night/Christmas light photos like the ones on this gorgeous Instagram account - Nicola Easterby (@polkadotpassport) • Instagram photos and videos

I currently have a Canon t4i with the standard kit lens and also a 40mm pancake lens. Do I need to upgrade to a different lens to get the blur and capture the lights? And are there any tutorials I can follow to learn these techniques too?


Thanks!

 

[andrewkurcan]

Hello Shillise!

Could you point us to specific photos? Your setup is a great place to start!

Generally for night photography, you'll want a tripod, possibly a wired shutter release. Otherwise it varies - sometimes you want a low ISO with a tight aperture, other times you push it for the effect. If you're looking for blurred out Christmas lights behind a subject you can either use that 40mm @ 2.8, or your standard kit lens as wide as it will go, with your subject far enough away from the background.

I know it's not super helpful, but let's zero in on a couple of examples and I can be more specific.

 

[Derrel]

A large percentage of her "night" images are not made at night: they are made at TWILIGHT, while the mostly VERY bright lights are on for the Christmas season, and while there is STILL a good deal of light in the sky! The sun is not actually fully set; this is the best time to make may of these types of "night photos"--at twilight time. She is also a professional travel shooter. And these were made in Europe. And edited HARD, too,. I might add. By a VERY skilled processor.

See the shot of her in the penthouse bathtub? That is early twilight, or pre-twilight.

Shoot in raw capture mode, at lower ISO values like 100 to 200, to get the widest possible dynamic range. Do NOT over-expose the highlights too much, if at all. Since you shot in raw (.CR2 mode), you will later, in processing software, "Lift the shadows", and position the mid-tone values, to create these looks.

This kind of shooting is easier with some of the new Nikon and Sony cameras that have 14.5 to 14.7 EV of total scene dynamic range they can handle; this is helpful for lifting realllllllllllly daaaaaaaaark shadows, while protecting the highlights, which you did NOT over-expose. These types of imagesm, 10 years ago, were much more-0difficult to make than they are with a new Sony-sensored camera. On old, 2001 d-slr's with 9-stop DR, we;ve gained almost six full EV ***more*** software correction/shadow lifting potential.

IF YOU ARE NOT a great software photo editor: When shooting in JPEG capture mode, turn on your camera's Highlight Tone Priority if you have it in a Canon, or in a Nikon, use the Auto Dynamic Range Optimizer setting, to High, for your JPEG images.

You can also "cheat" a bit, and use the camera's pop-up flash at 1/2 or 1/5 or 1/8 or 1/16 power in Manual mode, and set the exposure to around 1/15 second to 1/100 or 1/125 second at the fastest, and have the lens opening sert so you get a decent, but NOT over-exposed lights exposure, and let the weak, tiny little "pip..." of flash light up people, thigns in the near foreground area. lens set to Likely f/6.3 or f/7.1 for the background lights.

I forgot to mention too: see how GLORIOUS and BRIGHT those Eurpopean light displays are? And, again....these can be BRIGHT areas, where the exposure is ISO 200 at f/4 at 1/60 or 1/40 second: very far above "night" levels of brightness.

This is not really night photography: this is brightly-lighted, tourist-area lighting, like you might see in Times Square, in Tokyo, places like in las Vegas or Reno, in the big touristy areas in London, or in Europe,etc.

 

[shillise]

Hello Shillise!

Could you point us to specific photos? Your setup is a great place to start!

Generally for night photography, you'll want a tripod, possibly a wired shutter release. Otherwise it varies - sometimes you want a low ISO with a tight aperture, other times you push it for the effect. If you're looking for blurred out Christmas lights behind a subject you can either use that 40mm @ 2.8, or your standard kit lens as wide as it will go, with your subject far enough away from the background.

I know it's not super helpful, but let's zero in on a couple of examples and I can be more specific.

Thanks Andrew

These are the photos I had in mind:

Please do not post photos to which you do not own rights. You may post a link.

 

[shillise]

A large percentage of her "night" images are not made at night: they are made at TWILIGHT, while the mostly VERY bright lights are on for the Christmas season, and while there is STILL a good deal of light in the sky! The sun is not actually fully set; this is the best time to make may of these types of "night photos"--at twilight time. She is also a professional travel shooter. And these were made in Europe. And edited HARD, too,. I might add. By a VERY skilled processor.

See the shot of her in the penthouse bathtub? That is early twilight, or pre-twilight.

Shoot in raw capture mode, at lower ISO values like 100 to 200, to get the widest possible dynamic range. Do NOT over-expose the highlights too much, if at all. Since you shot in raw (.CR2 mode), you will later, in processing software, "Lift the shadows", and position the mid-tone values, to create these looks.

This kind of shooting is easier with some of the new Nikon and Sony cameras that have 14.5 to 14.7 EV of total scene dynamic range they can handle; this is helpful for lifting realllllllllllly daaaaaaaaark shadows, while protecting the highlights, which you did NOT over-expose. These types of imagesm, 10 years ago, were much more-0difficult to make than they are with a new Sony-sensored camera. On old, 2001 d-slr's with 9-stop DR, we;ve gained almost six full EV ***more*** software correction/shadow lifting potential.

IF YOU ARE NOT a great software photo editor: When shooting in JPEG capture mode, turn on your camera's Highlight Tone Priority if you have it in a Canon, or in a Nikon, use the Auto Dynamic Range Optimizer setting, to High, for your JPEG images.

You can also "cheat" a bit, and use the camera's pop-up flash at 1/2 or 1/5 or 1/8 or 1/16 power in Manual mode, and set the exposure to around 1/15 second to 1/100 or 1/125 second at the fastest, and have the lens opening sert so you get a decent, but NOT over-exposed lights exposure, and let the weak, tiny little "pip..." of flash light up people, thigns in the near foreground area. lens set to Likely f/6.3 or f/7.1 for the background lights.

I forgot to mention too: see how GLORIOUS and BRIGHT those Eurpopean light displays are? And, again....these can be BRIGHT areas, where the exposure is ISO 200 at f/4 at 1/60 or 1/40 second: very far above "night" levels of brightness.

This is not really night photography: this is brightly-lighted, tourist-area lighting, like you might see in Times Square, in Tokyo, places like in las Vegas or Reno, in the big touristy areas in London, or in Europe,etc.

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my question Derrel.

You are right - they are twilight photos! Maybe this would have helped while I was googling for tutorials lol

Unfortunately I'm not currently in the position to purchase a new camera, but will definitely trial some of the tips you mentioned with my current camera and go from there!

Thanks again have a lovely festive season!

 

[Derrel]

BTW, your 40mm pancake lens will give quite similar blur degree, and bokeh ball size on point light sources, as seen in those two sample shots. A big, long, 300mm tele will give BIG bokeh balls on Out of focus lights. A 40mm will be an effective very short tele/very long normal; on an APS-C Canon, and ought to give nice bokeh balls on the lights. My feeling is the 40mm pancake will be a very,very good lens for this kind of work....likely better than many lower-cost zooms.

So...get to where there are some lights, and start shooting about 30 minutes before the sun goes down! The time is NOW! While the lights are still up, and on every day!

 

[photo1x1.com]

Hi and welcome to the forums. I´m not a forum veteran, but fromt he days I am here I know that people here don´t like members posting images that are not theirs - so a link might be better than actually embedding the images here.

In regard to your question about these images: Derrel is spot on in regard to the lighting. The second image you posted is shot in twilight. For chistmas markets that is a very short time, starting around 10-20mins after sunset (depending on the weather) and lasting only for another 10-20 mins. Lightingwise it is important for these kind of images that the christmasmarket lights are equal to the ambient light, or they start overpowering it slightly.

In regard to the blurred background. For the most part this has to do with aperture. The smaller the aperture number, the smaller the depth of focus. Since you asked for a tutorial - I am preparing one to capture all the factors for blurred background, but for a quick start, may I humbly suggest this video of my youtube photo course about the effect aperture has in regard to a blurred background?

EDIT: as always it took me too long to reply

 

[photo1x1.com]

BTW, your 40mm pancake lens will give quite similar blur degree, and bokeh ball size on point light sources, as seen in those two sample shots. A big, long, 300mm tele will give BIG bokeh balls on Out of focus lights. A 40mm will be an effective very short tele/very long normal; on an APS-C Canon, and ought to give nice bokeh balls on the lights. My feeling is the 40mm pancake will be a very,very good lens for this kind of work....likely better than many lower-cost zooms.

So...get to where there are some lights, and start shooting about 30 minutes before the sun goes down! The time is NOW! While the lights are still up, and on every day!

Definitely - I just recently shot a lot of christmas markets for a new project - all in a hurry because the christmas lights will be gone very, very soon and you have to wait another year for your next chance. So today is your best start.