Photography tips: How to take Christmas Bokeh shots

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For those of you that are taking your camera beyond the “auto” mode and experimenting this holiday season, I thought I’d share some photography tips on How to take Christmas Bokeh shots.

*The term bokeh comes from the Japense word boke, which means “blur” or “haze” –wikipedia

ISO 1000 SS 1/250 f 1.8

I love to see holiday photography with a little bokeh in the background.  The lights all a-blur and sparkling up the image.  Here are a few tips for capturing that beauty, but first you must Say NO to Auto, my friends.

1. Wide aperture (low number)–I shot on 1.8 with my 85mm lens
2. Place a subject in front of the lights…focus in on that subject while throwing the background out of focus
3.  The further away that object is from the lights, the better bokeh you will get.  Bigger and rounder.

Here are some shots I took…(all with my 85mm lens)

My son is about 10 feet away from the tree, facing the window in the daylight.
ISO 1000 SS 1/250 f 1.8

 

 ISO 1000 SS 1/400 f 1.8
Then I went to my colorful lights for a night shot.  A tripod is also helpful when having a low shoutter speed (I didn’t pull it out for this).
ISO 1250 ss 1/100 f1.8
Here it is during the day time.  The daylight coming through drowns out the colorful lights a bit.
ISO 1250 ss1/400 f1.8
  Get creative with your holiday shots, during the day is easier because you have some natural light from the windows, but this is a fun way to get artistic images at Christmas time.

 

If you’d to join the Capturing Joy Photo Club on Facebook, where we have photo challenges, Q&A’s, and image sharing, request to join HERE: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CapturingJoyPhotoClub/

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