Fairy Lights

[Don Ellis]

Is that what they call those tiny Christmas lamps? Anyway, there's a big shopping mall (Pacific Place in Hong Kong) that every year strings orange lights around the trunks of their trees. Much more inspired that stringing them in the branches -- it looks somewhat surreal, like an army of radioactive tree trunks with invisible arms.

I used a Manfrotto 055PRO (they'll sell those things to anybody) splayed out to within five inches of the ground, extended the horizontal shaft for the ballhead so that it was within a few inches of the tree trunk, gave thanks for the G2's swivel LCD and here you are...



Christmas is coming and someone on one of the forums was asking about taking photos of the Christmas tree. Hopefully Santa leaves you a tripod so all you have to do is to set your camera to manual. You don't bracket -- at least I don't. You shoot half a dozen photos across a variety of apertures or shutter speeds (pick one). Load them onto your computer, check which settings are best and then you can bracket future shots from there. Since I was nowhere near a computer, I shot six photos for every one that I wanted.

If you leave your digital to P mode, the lights will blow out and you'll see all the needles/leaves of the tree. I chose the shot where the lights weren't too blown and the leaves were just barely coming into view. If you're using a G2, remember that low-light noise reduction kicks in at 1.3 seconds, so, if it's appropriate, use that or a slower shutter speed to lessen noise.

If you actually try this at Pacific Place, go up to their rooftop garden where you have a little privacy away from the circular drive and taxi stands. They'll boot you out for using a tripod. Tis the season...

Here's the information for this shot.

Canon PowerShot G2
Shutter speed: 1.6 sec
Aperture: 6.3
Exposure mode: Manual
ISO: 50
Image quality: Raw
White balance: Auto
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Contrast: Normal