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How To Photograph A Christmas Tree

My 10 tips for capturing great holiday photos of your little ones post got me all excited about photography so today I thought I’d share how to photograph a Christmas tree. Because who doesn’t like taking a killer photo of their tree and showing it off on Facebook and Instagram?

How to photograph a Christmas tree!  Great tips!

There are two pieces of equipment, besides my Canon 7D camera, that I use when taking photos of my tree– a tripod and remote shutter release. The remote shutter release isn’t dire because you can use the timer on your camera. I just like having the remote shutter release. (Read more about my photography equipment here and here.)

The tripod and remote shutter release (or timer) are important because even if you hold your camera really still your photos won’t come out as crisp because the camera’s shutter will open and close slowly and the slightest tiny movement can cause a photo to look blurry.

Some tutorials will tell you to ramp up your ISO. I don’t do that because when you go to too high of an ISO the photo becomes grainy.

This photo of our 2012 Christmas tree was taken during the day, as you can see.

Here are the settings I used:
f/9
4 sec
ISO 200

jewel tone christmas tree 1

This photo was taken at night. I turned off all the lights, making sure it was pitch dark in the room besides the tree. The longer shutter speed/exposure time is what caused the lights to look like little stars. The 15 sec means that my shutter was open for 15 seconds.

Here are the settings I used:
f/25
15 sec
ISO 200

jewel tone christmas tree

I shot the next up close photos with my 50mm lens. It’s a great lens for the value. See how the longer exposure time (10 sec) created the star effect with the lights?

Here are the settings I used:
f/14
10 sec
ISO 200

jewel tone christmas ornaments 1

Here are the settings I used for the photo below:
f/5.6
1.6 sec
ISO 200

jewel tone christmas ornaments

I got my wish of putting up a white Christmas tree last year.

Here are the settings I used for the photo below:
f/10
1 sec
ISO 200

white christmas tree

Here are the settings I used for the photo below:
f/10
1 sec
ISO 200

colorful ornaments

Here are the settings I used for the photo below:
f/10
1/8 sec
ISO 200

jewel tone ornaments

Here are the settings I used for the nighttime photo:
f/14
3 sec
ISO 200

White tree at night

Keep in mind that I do some light editing in Photoshop to enhance the majority of the photos on the blog. But there are free photo editing sites out there like Picmonkey that you can use to edit photos.

In other news, I’m co-hosting a Twitter party with Hallmark Baby TONIGHT at 8:30 PM EDT. We’ll be giving out fun prizes! Make sure to follow me (@two_twenty_one) and Hallmark Baby (@HallmarkBaby). Use the hashtag #PicPerfHoliday. I hope you’ll join in on the fun!

This post contains affiliate links.

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5 Comments

  1. Pretty! Thanks for the tips.

  2. I love the light of Christmas tree’s. I’m going on a Christmas lights tour our town does every year and I love seeing all the lights. You can even tour some of the historical homes. It’s gorgeous.

  3. Love your blog – these are great tips! Your pictures are always so gorgeous. Where did you get the star on top of your tree from? It’s exactly what I’m looking for, for ours!

  4. I liked you advices and I have used them already. This time I liked my Christmas tree pics but they are not still as I want and this is because mytree is in front of Windows. Do you have any idea what settings must I use?
    Thank you in advance for your response

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