Photograph Your Christmas Tree | Salisbury MD Photographer - Kristin Nicole Images

Every year people struggle taking photos of their kids with their Christmas Tree. Here is a helpful article that is pretty simple to follow to get the best tree photos you can get. http://www.lightstalking.com/successfully-photograph-christmas-tree/

Everyone loves picture of their kids with the Christmas Tree. I am here with my son Connor and my daughter Mikayla to help you with that task. You can photograph your tree any time of day, but if you’re taking pictures at night, make sure to turn off all the lights in the room. I like the glow you get on the kids with mine so I always take pictures at night. If you like the look of the tree lights being bright circles in the background like my first and last photo make sure there is four feet or so between your child and the tree but focus on your kid. It will blur out the background and give you that look. If they are too close to the tree, it will all be in focus and you won’t get those circles.

Using a tripod is a good idea also since you are going to be working with pretty slow shutter speeds which will blur your photo if you move. If you don’t want to fool with a tripod or you don’t have one just hold your arms close to your body to help steady the camera. I took all three of these photos by hand. I know Manual Mode is super scary for some people but there is only three things to remember: Your F-stop, ISO, and shutter speed.

On most cameras those settings can be adjusted with a wheel on the top or a menu mode on the back screen of your camera. The easiest thing to do if you can’t figure it out is Google what you are trying to do for your specific camera. YouTube is a great help with learning manual mode. The type of camera you have will make a difference with what you are able to do with your F-stop. Most cameras have a range they can use and a lot of them start at F 4.5 which is a little harder to use in low light. You want your F-stop to be as low as possible. I used F-stop 2.8 on my photos. This article says they use 1.4 but lenses like that are pretty expensive and most people don’t have that available.

The next thing to adjust is your ISO. That number should be up around 900 depending on how much light you have in the room and what your f-stop is on your lens. The lower the number the better but most cameras can handle up to 1200 pretty easily without it being “grainy” which is a word used when your photo looks fuzzy and not clear.

Your shutter speed is your last thing to adjust. It is going to have to be low to let enough light into the camera so that is why this article suggests a tripod. Mine are pretty low to be holding by hand but I made it work. With kids you have to go with the flow sometimes as you guys well know. You will have to play with your settings to get it right but you will eventually get the three things adjusted to where your photo comes out perfect. If you are having difficulties getting your photos to turn out let me know and I will help you. You can contact me on my Facebook or send me an email. I will post the settings I used under each of my photos so you can get an idea of what to use. Happy Shooting and Merry Christmas!

ISO 800, F 2.8, 1/80 sec