How to make your Christmas tree 'glow' in pictures and give your lights a star effect

 

How to make your Christmas tree 'glow' in pictures and give your lights a star effect.

Someone asked me this week, 'how do I make my tree look like it's glowing in photos?', well I'm going to try and answer that question with some photos.

This works best if you have a tripod or a level surface that you can 'balance' your camera on, as you'll be using your camera on a long exposure setting and if there is any movement at all, the picture will look blurry.  First of all find yourself either Christmas lights (even the ones on the outside of your house), or a Christmas tree with lots of lights.

1.   I put my camera in manual mode which is the M button on your camera.
2.   Change the aperture to f22 or higher, I used f30 for my pictures.  If you don't have that high an   
       aperture, just play around with the settings and see what works.
3.   If you can change your ISO, adjust to 100 so there is no grain in the resulting picture.
4.   Your white balance should be changed to tungsten (usually represented by a picture of a light
       bulb on your camera).
5.   change your shutter speed to 20 - 30 seconds, whatever your camera can manage.  This is a long
      exposure so there can be no movement whatsoever; make sure the camera is on a level surface,
       prefably a tripod. 
6.   Lastly, set your camera to self time, so instead of you pressing the shutter release, the camera will
      automatically release.

Voila!!! there you have it, play around with the settings and see the results!!!

Here are some of mine!

This would work even better if  the room was darker, but the tree is beside a window in my studio.

shot f/22 - ISO 100 - exposure time 20 secs - focal length 18mm

 

Twinkle Twinkle little star!