Christmas tree photos

The problem you are having with the picture being grainy is because the shutter speed is to fast, thus the picture is under exposed . (dark).

What I did to get this picture was. First set the Camera's ISO to 200, set it to Aperture priority and manually set it. In this case I use F16. The larger the number, the more the camera's iris closes. Resulting in a longer shutter time. This helps bring everything into focus. I also Set the white balance manually, and used a mirror to reflect some light from a lamp across the room onto Heather's face to brighten it up. What makes it hard is because the majority of the light is behind the subject. So, it'll always make the doll darker.
Here is the info on this picture

Focal Length 20mm
Shutter speed 20 seconds
Aperature F16
ISO 200
White Balance - Manual Set


Now If I used a brighter light source to reflect light on Heather, and tilk the camera so the star is not in it, it would look better.

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In this one I tilted the camera down, and moved the subject closer, and increased the F-Stop and and slowed the shutter more.

Focal Length - 45mm
Shutter Speed - 30 seconds
Aperture - F22
White Balance - Manual Set


Now depending on your camera, if with ISO 200 the picture still seems to be dark. up your ISO to 400, and open the aperture some more (smaller number). Playing with the settings doesn't hurt, and will help you learn more. Even with these pictures there is still room for improvement.

 

Generally speaking, the lower the film iso the less grainy you get, however at the same time the less light sensitivity the film has. The same principles work for digital cameras. 800 ISO will be grainy but very receptive to light, 100 needs more umph from light (or longer shutter speed) but if far less grainy.

Depth of field - this is in regards to what is in focus in the picture. The narrower the apature in your camera, the longer the depth of field (i.e. the wider the distance between the camera and the objects that will be in focus). however if you don't mind having less in focus you can sacrifice this, open up your apature which will let in more light. i.e. if everything you want in focus is on the same plane/distance from your camera you can probably sacrifice the depth and have other things blurry (this can be an athestic choice)

Shutter speed - on most automatic cameras, the shutter speed will adjust to the manual settings you've gotten set up. Pretty straight forward...faster shutter speed means less light into the camera, but also less chance of the shakey hand blur. You can slow down your shutter speed to let more light into the camera. If you have a tripod then this can eliminate most of the blue one can get from the shakey hands....

White/Grey Balance: depending on your camera it's good to get this set. Check your manual to see if it's a white or grey balancer. (usually white, or a 12% grey). This will help keep colours and brightness sharp.

Light source - if possible keep the light from bring behind your subject. It makes it much harder to photograph and capture details. Try posing your doll 180 deg around and moving your camera to the other side, you'll probably get better results. Or if you want the back light, make sure you have a secondary light source to brighten up from the front. A light with diffuser works well for this (ie light source with something like a white sheet up in front so it's not so glaring or casting hard shadows)

anyhoo gotta work again....maybe post more later

 

I never took the time to play around with my digital camera settings b/c I'm too stupid to figure out effect would produce what, so thank you so much for the photography tips, Kotori and rillystar!! I'll definitely be taking tree photos when I go back home and these are extremely helpful.

BTW, Heather looks like an angel; her Shinku outfit is awesome!! ^_^

 

What a great post, Kotori! And your two lit-tree photos are really nice! One thing I would add is that use of a tripod goes a LONG way towards being able to make one's camera work harder - especially a good thing with Christmas tree photos because of the varied light sources, the metering difficulties (the tree being darker than the lights, decorations, and the doll), and the desire for a smaller f-stop making for a sharper image!

Let's see what others can do with their camera - please post settings and techniques, as Kotori did!

 

I haven't done tree photos yet this year, so this is one from last year. ^_^ I just have a very straightforward digital camera (I think it's a Nikon) and for these I simply set the auto shutter speed/light balance to about -1.5. Having a tripod really helped as well.



I really know very little about photography, so I didn't do anything too complicated for these. Also we had lots and lots of lights on our tree, so I think that helped keep the pictures from being too dark. I turned out the overhead light in the room and set the dolls back far enough that the tree lights would get them from in front and overhead.

there are more photos from this shoot here:
http://aramis-d.livejournal.com/22564.html

We've got a smaller tree and a new apartment this year, so I'd love to see people's tips and photos! I will probably need them. ^^;

 

I took some christmas tree pictures last night

I had my camera on a tripod which is REALLLLY Important. I also used a lamp with a shade for some added light and i used a clamp light but i didn't have the light shining directly on my dolls because it would wash out there faces. I messed around with different ISO's and shutter speeds and used all different ones. Some of the photos are not photoshopped and some are. the ones that are soft are all photoshopped.