How to Photograph Christmas Lights

Understanding the light outdoors

Another reason to begin at the golden hour as festivities begin is to help set your camera’s exposure and ISO adjustments such that they not only capture the display lights themselves but also the context — the Christmas tree they’re hung on, the people, the space, the elements out there.

Set your exposure to work with the lights, not the sky. Because once it gets really dark, you’ll waste precious time readjusting your settings tonight, and your lights will begin to look ghostly in a black setting.

As an example, you can see how the daylight and nighttime affect the festive string lighting at this Airstream and private backyard in Santa Barbara. Adjusting your camera’s exposure ensures you capture such lighting and the surroundings as crisply as possible.

Understanding the light indoors

If you’re figuring out how to photograph Christmas lights indoors, you probably have a bit more leeway in terms of ambient light, but your task remains the same — managing to balance lighting between the house, and the lights of the Christmas tree and any other light sources in the scene.

People decorate their houses based on personal taste, not photography, so you may not always have the luxury of dragging in heavy gear to interrupt the festivities.

This Christmas photography studio in Roseville, CA, is decorated to the max with string lighting and LED candles. Since it is a professional photography space, lighting equipment is on-site and available for you to experiment with.

A good thing to do would be to test some angles and turn ambient lights on and off in the space until you can get a good frame to work with. Take advantage of your ability to control the scene by experimenting.

Getting camera settings in place

Begin with an ISO of around 400, and go from there. An f/8 aperture and a slow shutter speed will help you fill your frame with light even in dark settings. In the hustle and bustle of festivities, sometimes you may need stability, and sometimes you may need to move quickly, in which case you’d make the shutter speed faster. If you find that the Christmas lights are getting too blown out and overly bright, choose a faster shutter speed.

Planning your shots will help decide when to use a tripod and cable release to get rid of shakes at low shutter speeds. If you’re planning to move around, find places you can perch yourself with stability, or hold the camera steady and eliminate shake. If you’re tempted to use your on-camera flash, don’t. Seriously.

Test shots and adjustments

When you’re on the move to find good shots, use your camera’s automatic light metering settings to figure out optimally lit frames. Try center-metering your camera in the settings, and do a trial run of periodic clicks every few minutes, known as exposure bracketing, as the evening passes to get to a point where the light looks good to you.

And from here on, post-sunset, there’s a small window of timing and light available as the Christmas lights come on!

An outdoor Christmas set like this one in Los Angeles provides a perfect opportunity to practice capturing holiday lighting as the sun sets.

Adjustments for indoor setups

When you are shooting indoors, there may be many light sources to consider apart from Christmas lights themselves — the space’s ambient lighting or a fireplace and decorative elements as well. Here, the same principle of testing exposure shots applies, though the settings may be slightly different.

Try to set a white balance similar to incandescent lighting so that there is some warmth in your pictures. But ensure this doesn’t add more warmth to what the lights create. In this context, it’s easy for your photos to come out looking pretty yellow.

As an example, let’s say you’re hired to photograph a corporate Christmas party at this St. Helena vineyard event space. The stone cellar provides zero natural light. However, it does offer candlelight and electric light.

When your frame is over/underexposed, regulate light by changing shutter speed, not aperture and ISO. Remember that there needs to be a balance of light and shadow for lights to sparkle well and for the surroundings to be gently visible. 

To make things interesting, play with another lamp or light source nearby. When it’s Christmas, there will be no shortage of lighting décor and ornaments to play with! 

Point and focus: How to create bright, Christmasy clicks

Ensure that you fill your frame with the lighting installation — you’re shooting in a darker environment, and this will help you compositionally. A key challenge of how photographing Christmas lights indoors is framing them well. No two frames will be the same. 

In dark spaces, especially indoors, try to get sufficient light in, with a suitable ISO beginning at 400, and a starting aperture around f/5.6 can help. Again, do not use flash. It will flatten your images and overrule the lighting of the space and the decorations. 

Check out our creative outdoor Christmas photoshoot ideas for inspiration for your next project!