Don’t you love the lights of the holidays? They give a lovely glow and set the mood for the festivities. I am pretty much a white lights kind of girl. I don’t especially like them to flicker or race. I just like the quiet, peaceful look. That is not to say that I don’t appreciate seeing all other kinds at other people’s houses, because I do. We have what our kids call “old school” lights across our roof – the big bulbed multi-colored lights. I would rather have a peaceful white there too but I bow to tradition.
Starry lights
It is possible to get a star effect on holiday lights without using a filter. Set a very small aperture (higher number, I know, I know, SO confusing!). For these photos, I used an aperture of f/22. Because you are using such a narrow aperture, you will need to have a long shutter speed which will mean a long exposure. Your pictures will be blurred if you handhold these shots, so use a tripod or some other steady surface. A table, a chair, a stack of books, a step stool, anything that is flat and steady will do. Obviously, tripods are easier because of the mobility but don’t let the lack of a tripod stop you. Set your camera to aperture priority and set the number to f/22. The camera will figure out how fast to make the shutter speed. Be sure not to use a flash. That will spoil the whole effect. Bracket your exposures, trying different settings. You may have click to make these photos larger to see the star effect.
Even the traffic lights are a lovely Christmas red and green.
Look at the star effect on the lights on top of the armoire. These are just ordinary small white lights.
Crazy lights
The holidays give us lights that we don’t normally have available the rest of the year. It gives us a lot of opportunity to play.
This first image is a shot of the tree in front of our downtown library, taken in a standard way.
This image uses the zoom technique. For this shot, I had my camera on a tripod and zoomed in and out with my lens while the shutter remained open, again for four seconds. To get your shutter speed slow enough, set a small aperture (remember, larger numbers) and keep a low ISO number (which will also help prevent a lot of grain). I was using a 24-78 zoom on this but any zoom lens would work.
This is a shot of a front entry. The zoom light effect is from color lights across the roof line and little white lights around the arch and on a small tree.
For this one I twirled the camera while my shutter remained open for 4 seconds. You can see the streaks from the big bulb kind of lights and the smaller white ones.
Hope you have a chance to play around with holiday lights. You'll never know what you will get.
Winter came back for just a quick goodbye yesterday. It was wondrous. The rain was steady all day and some of the night. We hunkered down with a fire, good food and lots to read. Okay, I was reading and poor WB was working on our taxes. Because wet city reflections are hard to find around here, after it got dark we headed downtown. I don't have much more to say about these photos but I couldn't get enough of the reflection and sparkle. 
Don’t you love the lights of the holidays? They give a lovely glow and set the mood for the festivities. I am pretty much a white lights kind of girl. I don’t especially like them to flicker or race. I just like the quiet, peaceful look. That is not to say that I don’t appreciate seeing all other kinds at other people’s houses, because I do. We have what our kids call “old school” lights across our roof – the big bulbed multi-colored lights. I would rather have a peaceful white there too but I bow to tradition.
Most of these were taken with my favorite night lens, 35mm 1.4. The only tripod shot is the first one. The tripod gives you so many opportunities but you can still capture things without it, as long as you can up your ISO and not mind the accompanying graininess. Different cameras and lenses handle graininess in different ways. A little grain never bothers me much. You can use a fence post, the top of your car or a ledge as a tripod.
In this shot you can see that the bike is blurry but the rest of the picture is rather sharp. This is due to the movement of the bike rider and a slow enough shutter speed that doesn't stop the action. Don't forget that you can click on any image to make it larger.
This shot uses a technique called panning. As I took the shot, I followed the car so that the car stays in focus while the background blurs. This is often a hit and miss technique with me. The color and style of the car really caught my eye but obviously I didn't have much time to set this up. I was going for the angle but if I had a redo, I probably would have shot it a little bit differently. Sometimes, you get what you get.
