Indoor Christmas Shots for Family - Lighting setups?

[kirbym2]

Hi Everyone,

I've got a few family members who know I'm into photography, and have asked for Christmas shots this year. Based on the time of year, and the weather not cooperating, I've offered to use my home for the shots. My problem is lighting. I've got a couple of speedlights, a reflector, etc., but by no means any "professional" equipment. The room itself has a sliding glass door, and small window (as far as natural light is concerned). Not sure whether to block these off, or leverage them for the shoot.

Given that these shots will be taken in front of a lit Christmas tree (placed near the sliding glass door), with various Christmas-themed props, does anyone have suggestions on lighting setup. I'm using an SB-600 and SB-900.

Largest group will be 6 people (including kids).

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[bratkinson]

Not having a family to practice with, I think I'd go for no flash photography, to ensure that the various Christmas tree lights show up nicely.

Depending on time of day and where the window(s) are/are not, I'd consider a number of things. Whether daylight or nighttime, I'd definitely want to avoid shooting squarely at the sliding glass door to avoid reflections, especially a flash, if used. I'd also want to get as little as possible of the door in the picture, even if necessary to bunch everyone together a bit (or kids in front). The reason is that if daytime, the door will be 'blown out' bright and possibly confuse your camera meter. At night, a black background doesn't do much to 'help' a picture.

The biggest problem, I suspect, is to get the Christmas tree lights actually 'lit' in the photograph, and the faces of the family members properly exposed. Using a flash to light up the people will wash out the Christmas lights. I'd be inclined to put the camera on a tripod and take a properly exposed picture of the tree with nobody in front. Then, 'line em up' and take their picture, properly exposing for their faces. Then simply layer to two exposures together in post. If that's beyond your post processing software capabilities, I'd go for set of bracketted exposures, figuring out which one I could tone-down the slightly overexposed highlights (faces) and bring up the midtones (Christmas lights) to get the best results.

If you can, perhaps a day or two ahead of time, take some practice shots with your family in front of the tree. That way, you'll know what works and doesn't work when everyone is there.

 

[cynicaster]

^^ a similar “dual exposure” could be achieved in-camera by setting the ambient exposure to render the tree nicely, then using the speedlight(s) to expose the subjects. How feasible that is for the specific situation at hand is difficult to say without seeing the room.

I’m not sure if you’d run into ugly color problems by mixing the window light with flash, but it’s something to watch out for. Can anybody comment on experiences with that?

 

[ronlane]

If it's during the day and possible, I would suggest diffusing the light in the sliding glass doors and using it and the reflector to help light the family. Is it possible to run a test is whom ever is available before you shoot? Same time of day, etc.

 

[robbins.photo]

Don't screw around with this, go Klieg. Pass out some shades first of course, that way they'll just get a good tan as opposed to being blinded permanently. On the upside you'll be ready for any possible future air raids and just imagine the kind of fun you can have with a "moonnight madness" garage sale.

But in all seriousness, bracketing would probably give you a lot of options here, most likely shoot the tree at a time of day when you don't have a lot of ambient light coming through the sliding glass door - another trick I've seen done - and this may or may not be effective for you depending on how the room is laid out, but I recall having taken some old cardboard boxes and taping them to the ceiling, throwing the christmas tree into shadow while leaving the lighting brighter on the family. This of course was before the days of photoshop and digital, but it's really amazing what you can accomplish with a couple of old cardboard boxes and some duct tape.

 

[Derrel]

^^ a similar “dual exposure” could be achieved in-camera by setting the ambient exposure to render the tree nicely, then using the speedlight(s) to expose the subjects. How feasible that is for the specific situation at hand is difficult to say without seeing the room.

I’m not sure if you’d run into ugly color problems by mixing the window light with flash, but it’s something to watch out for. Can anybody comment on experiences with that?

It can be done, but daylight coming in is not wanted at all. Why? Most Christmas lights look better with white balance set to tungsten. You need to do the following: ELEVATE the ISO to 400, 500,640,or 800. DO not ask why, JUST DO IT!!!!

Shoot with the camera on a tripod. SLow shutter speeds are needed to make the Christmas lights "build up" on the exposure. Think f/2.8 from 20 feet away or so, 50mm lens, 1/30 second. Bounce the flashes off the ceiling or a wall to create a large "wall of light" that is fairly soft and not too harsh. Put an orange gel on each flash, to turn the bright "white" light into warmer, more amber-colored, roughly 3,200 to 3,400 degrees Kelvin "tungsten-temp" light. Set the camera white balance, again, to Tungsten.

Here is a test session I did using the above method, back in 2007, when this issue came up on another forum. The main difference here though is that I used a flash in an umbrella for the light, not wall-bounce or ceiling-bounce, since the living room had cathedral ceilings.

minilights gallery 2 Photo Gallery by Derrel at pbase.com

 

[kirbym2]

Thanks for all of the feedback - very much appreciated. I've setup our Christmas decor a lot earlier than normal to give some practice time. I now tend to agree that the warm look of everything lit at night is very desirable. As these shots are setup for an afternoon, I'll kill all the window light. I've noticed in practicing with my 50mm that I just don't have the field of view I'm looking for, so I will likely end up using my 12-24 Tokina, or 17-50 Tamron.

@Derrel, appreciate your link - some great shots. The colour comes off very natural. That said, I don't have any gels currently. Any other white balance or flash settings you might recommend? Would you still recommend the higher ISO in this scenario? (I'm shooting with a D7000).

Thanks again all!

 

[cynicaster]

^^ Thanks for the explanation and sample photos, Derrel, that's great info. How far behind the subject were those lights?

 

[Derrel]

The Christmas lights were maybe 10 feet behind the focus plane. I used the longer focal lengths, up to 200mm, to create larger "bokeh balls", on some of the shots. As you can see, the shorter focal length stuff, done around 70mm, has much smaller "bokeh balls". Keep in mind though: those are MINI-lights. If the tree and decorations has larger lightbulbs, like the traditional "thumb-sized" bulbs, they will render bigger. But these days,most Christmas stuff uses smaller, mini-sized bulbs.

If you do not have gels, you will need to use a hammer to smash out the turn indicator lights from an older Volkswagen beetle or Van, and then tape the amber-colored shards to the front of your speedlight's Fresnel lens. Or failing that, just shoot things on daylight WB. The ISO needs to be relatively HIGH, because Christmas bulbs are very weak, and unless the ISO is higher, the lights render as very weak colors, and look just terrible. What this is is a "higher-ISO ambient light exposure" [for the lights] + a flash exposure [for the people, and for the darker areas of the tree].

I think with most lights, you will NEED to have the ambient light part of the exposure somewhere in the "higher ISO range" at f/2.8 and 1/30 second. If you got to 1600 ISO, you could go to f/4 at 1/30 second. The smaller the f/stop, the tinier the out of focus lights will be. This is not a time to worry about noise or grit or anything except getting the right "look" to the lights....meaning, elevated ISO levels are a MUST.

 

[bratkinson]

The Christmas lights were maybe 10 feet behind the focus plane. I used the longer focal lengths, up to 200mm, to create larger "bokeh balls", on some of the shots. As you can see, the shorter focal length stuff, done around 70mm, has much smaller "bokeh balls". Keep in mind though: those are MINI-lights. If the tree and decorations has larger lightbulbs, like the traditional "thumb-sized" bulbs, they will render bigger. But these days,most Christmas stuff uses smaller, mini-sized bulbs.

If you do not have gels, you will need to use a hammer to smash out the turn indicator lights from an older Volkswagen beetle or Van, and then tape the amber-colored shards to the front of your speedlight's Fresnel lens.

I always thought my Nikon toting friend was nuts. You proved it Derrel! It MUST BE Nikon cameras that do it to ordinary people! C'mon...Smashing Volkswagen turn lights? Nowadays, there's a number of car manufacturers that intentionally blind anyone immediately behind them with their amber turn signals lit by aircraft landing light bulbs! Only problem is, to buy one, you have to buy the 'entire light assembly' for a couple of hundred, give or take.

On the other hand, the pictures on your link are absolutely outstanding! One can only drool at all the beautiful bokeh in those shots! Now I'm going to have to break out my 135 f2L and see what I can come up with...as soon as I find a lit up tree somewhere...and some subjects, oh, about 10 feet in front of the tree(s). Hopefully, this thread will be long forgotten and nobody will notice if I don't put up any pictures... Oh...wait...I'm the photographer for the upcoming "Festival of the Giving Trees" at church. I guess I won't have any excuses for not being able to practice what I preach!