Six quick tips from Nikon Professional Services member (NPS), Wong Chek Poh.
Six quick tips from Nikon Professional Services member (NPS), Wong Chek Poh.
EXPLORE
Before you head out to capture the best of festive lighting, visit the locations you want to shoot. This way, you can work out the small details before you start shooting. Cameras can give you technical configurations, but your final composition is what makes the picture work.
For example, give yourself at least 10 minutes setup time for “blue hour” shots. Blue hour refers to period of twilight when the sky is still blue even after the sun has set. It usually lasts for 30 – 45 minutes and starts approximately at 7.00pm.
BEAUTY IN THE SURROUNDING
Don’t be shy in attempting to capture the surroundings. Challenge yourself to include traffic trails and people. To capture trailing lights from traffic, try to find a high vantage point. Also, look to capture the emotions of the people around you too.
ENSURE A GOOD DEPTH OF FIELD
Set your aperture small, preferable between f/8- f/16, and use a long shutter speed to obtain exposure for impressive light trials and motions. A small aperture will also create a starburst effect from those lights in the frame.
DON’T GO TOO HIGH WITH ISO
ISO measures the sensitivity of the sensor. More often than not, your surroundings will be rather dark when you are capturing festive lights, and you might instinctively try to allow more light into your camera by using a higher ISO. However, it’s best not to go too high with your ISO to ensure minimal noise in your images. Instead, try going low first. Set your camera’s ISO to within 100 - 400 and take a couple of shots. Gradually increase the ISO until you get the quality and lighting effect you like.
SLOW DOWN THE SHUTTER SPEED
The longer the shutter is kept open, the more light is captured. Of course, motion will be captured too; hence the light trails. Experiment to see what shutter speed gives you the best balance of exposure and motion, but between 4 to 10 seconds is a good place to start.
USE A TRIPOD OR SOMETHING CLOSE
Without a means of stabilization, capturing great photos of festive lighting can be quite challenging, so get a good and sturdy tripod. When you use long exposures, the camera has to be still for a longer period of time as every vibration is picked up. So if you don’t have tripod, find support against something solid. Good luck.
PICTURES WONG CHEK POH.
