Last year i tried taking photos of our outside christmas lights and it didnt go so well. If i have the flash on you couldnt see the lights and it was way too bright but if i turned the flash off you couldnt see anything at all.
What settings should i be using for it?
Not sure what settings our digital camera has but its a fujifilm finepix S5700
To take your Chrissie lights, put them on early and take the photos at dusk. That way there's a bit of ambient light to show off the house, but the lights will sparkle. If you look at the ads for houses where the front lights are lovely, that's when they take them.
Long shutter speed - try about a 1/30 second if you can (use tripod). And no flash
I'm not too familiar with that camera but I can offer a few suggestions that may help.
Don't use the flash. You want the lights to be the main thing and the flash will wash them out.
Is there some way you can have the shutter speed on for longer? My dad has a fugi finepix and he does have a little bit of manual control and s/s I'm sure is one of them.
For this to work properly you need a tripod (or fence or prop it in a tree) to prevent blur from your hands moving.
Does it have a night shot function at all? Start off on that and see what you end up with.
As the other girls have said don't use the flash and therefore you really really need to use a tripod or something to rest the camera on otherwise you will get camera shake (blur).
If you have a manual control setting on your camera, try setting the ISO to around 400 (any higher and your photo may be grainy), also set a longer shutter speed (Tv) and a wide apeture value (Av).
If you don't have full manual control on your camera you might have semi-automatic controls which means you can set one of the above values yourself and the camera will work out the rest.
Well i cant hold it up with anything at all but it does have a function to stop blur. I've also got a setting that says retains natural ambience without flash but everytime i use that the photos always come out grainy.
Maybe i should get a proper SLR lol *day dreams* :P
ETA: when i put it on manual i can do everything you said except the flash won't turn off.
Last edited by Antheia; December 5th, 2007 at 09:16 AM.
Even with that anti-blur function, you will still need something to help minimise movement as the slightest movement will be picked up and blur the shot. Some tips are;
Keep your arms close to your body - rest your elbows on yourself - keep them tucked in tight
Get someone to be in front of you and lean on them (support your arms on them) or to support the camera on
Use the back of a chair to support your arms or lean the camera on
Use a fenceline to rest the camera on
Use a table to rest the camera on. You can add phone books on top if it isn't high enough.
For the lighting issue, you could try some softly lit lamps (or candles providing it isn't a Total Fire Ban Day) which will help with soft background light that won't take away from the Christmas lights. It may give enough light off to stop the camera from wanting to use the flash.
Antheia - do you have a stepladder? That will put the camera on just fine.
Rest your forearms on the support, with the camera there as well (a little pillow will help!) and take press the shutter release as you breath out - it is more controlled than breathing in or holding your breath.
Otherwise just use the ldder / support but instead of holding the camera to press the shutter, use the self-timer function to take the photo (there will prolly be a lag of 30secs or summat).
One thing about graininess or noise is that while it looks bad on the screen it prints up a lot better. I'm not sure what your ultimate goal is though...
My goal is just to be able to see the lights on the photo lol
Like i said if the flash is on your cant see them cause its too bright obviously and if the flash is off you cant see anything at all not even the christmas lights its just pitch black on the photo.
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Photos of christmas lights
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