On Friday, I’m headed to the infamous Dyker Heights Light Display in Brooklyn, and will be taking my new Nikon D90 in tow.
But, no matter how carried away these holidaysters get – one Clark Griswold-disciple reportedly pays more than $5,000 in electricity each season – there’s still a whole lotta black, and very little light, making for some tough shutterbugging.
Thankfully, plenty of master photographers have already thought through the techniques to best capture nighttime light displays.
First off, Strobist recommends getting started a bit before the sky blackens entirely to get some help from a bit of ambient light.
The Fun Times Guide suggests a few tips for focusing, metering, and manual exposure.
This Digital Photography Tip from EZine Articles offers some help with the bracketing exposure technique as applied to Christmas lights, and Wolfe’s offers this helpful chart for the same technique. And, these tips from the New York Institute of Photography explains the whys and hows of your camera settings as they relate to light displays.
