Ho Ho HoFather Christmas, full of air?

One of the characteristic things in the good ol' USA around Christmas is the presence of Christmas light displays. It can be a little tricky to capture these and here are a few tricks that work for me (outside of the obvious need for a good tripod).

Film Speed. You can always use a higher film speed, but as shown below that tends to wash out the colours.

2000 ASA or so

The colors work better with a slow speed and longer exposures. (I used ASA 50 - as low as the a7iii would go and aperture mode to get to a 30' exposure). This brings its own problems as even with a decent tripod you can get motion.

motion problems The next trick is to use the self-timer. That gives the camera time to settle before the exposure. (See the title picture and the one below).

with the self-timer Of course, you can get those "happy little accidents" like when a car came by and I had to move mid-exposure.

A happy accidentAvoiding a car running my camera and )possibly more importantly) me over.