Christmas Lights

Yes it's stupid again, with probably another stupid post that doesn't even put me in the ball park of photography, but I am to stupid to stop asking questions so here goes.

I want to take pictures this Christmas of the family, most will be taken indoors which means flash time.
I want to get some of the kids with Christmas lights ( one is two years old) near them, them around the tree, Etc, the ones with the kids with Christmas lights is going to give me a fit, I think. My thinking is I will need to set the shutter speed near the flash sync 1/200 ( to stop the two year old in his tracks) the Aperture I want shallow DOF so I am thinking I may need to use the nifty fifty f/1.8 for the DOF and my thinking is I should set the ISO to 200 to 800 (I don't think I need to go any higher being a T3i) , and I keep playing around with the flashes power to get the exposure right? Where did my thoughts get me on this one?

I appreciate all the help I get from you guys and gals.
Thanks
Don

I'm not sure what your goal is here. Are you wanting them to be illuminate by the lights, or are you simply wanting the lights to be a factor here? If you are using flash you dont have to worry about shutter speed to stop the little one, you can do that with flash duration. As long as your flash is two stops brighter than the ambient you dont have to worry about ghosting from his movements.

Keep in mind that if you have your flash close to the subject, and the lights back a bit falloff from the flash allows the background to remain dark and still record the lights.

gonzogolf wrote in post #16514153
I'm not sure what your goal is here. Are you wanting them to be illuminate by the lights, or are you simply wanting the lights to be a factor here? If you are using flash you dont have to worry about shutter speed to stop the little one, you can do that with flash duration. As long as your flash is two stops brighter than the ambient you dont have to worry about ghosting from his movements.

Keep in mind that if you have your flash close to the subject, and the lights back a bit falloff from the flash allows the background to remain dark and still record the lights.

Thanks Gonzogolf

Yes, illuminate by the lights, Thats a great picture gonzogolf

DigitalDon wrote in post #16514163
Thanks Gonzogolf

Yes, illuminate by the lights

If you want them to (appear)to be illuminated by lights then its a bit different proposition as you are looking for a different balance. The first problem is direction. If you use a flash on the front but the lights are supposed to be coming from the tree its unnatural but if you put the flash in/near the tree you risk overpowering the lights. Its a tricky thing but your best bet is to shoot some test shots without the subject to get the look you want in terms of ambient balance, then add a very low powered manual flash near the tree, and bring up the power until you are happy with the light. Gels help to match the color of the lights.

Gonzo's photo is very nice. If you are looking for more ambient though you'll have to approach the photo a little differently. In my photo below I exposed for the background which was ISO 800, 1/60, 2.8 Then I added off camera flash that I bounced off the ceiling and dialed in the desired amount of flash compensation. Be careful using wide open apertures when shooting kids. I was able to get away with 2.8 because they were pretty still but ideally you'll want to shoot around 4.5-5.6 for this type of shot. I'm afraid if you use your 1.8 you'll be out of focus.

gonzogolf wrote in post #16514182
If you want them to (appear)to be illuminated by lights then its a bit different proposition as you are looking for a different balance. The first problem is direction. If you use a flash on the front but the lights are supposed to be coming from the tree its unnatural but if you put the flash in/near the tree you risk overpowering the lights. Its a tricky thing but your best bet is to shoot some test shots without the subject to get the look you want in terms of ambient balance, then add a very low powered manual flash near the tree, and bring up the power until you are happy with the light. Gels help to match the color of the lights.

Thanks
I was playing around with the settings and some Christmas lights and the battery ran down before I could get started good, I had those setting I mentioned and I adjusted the shutter until I got the Christmas lights like I wanted but I was wondering how to add a tiny amount of light to the face without washing out the Christmas lights.

StanNJ1 wrote in post #16514208
Gonzo's photo is very nice. If you are looking for more ambient though you'll have to approach the photo a little differently. In my photo below I exposed for the background which was ISO 800, 1/60, 2.8 Then I added off camera flash that I bounced off the ceiling and dialed in the desired amount of flash compensation. Be careful using wide open apertures when shooting kids. I was able to get away with 2.8 because they were pretty still but ideally you'll want to shoot around 4.5-5.6 for this type of shot. I'm afraid if you use your 1.8 you'll be out of focus.

Wow, great picture
I'm going to Google and see if I can find something like I am talking about, Thanks for the help.

StanNJ1 wrote in post #16514208
Gonzo's photo is very nice. If you are looking for more ambient though you'll have to approach the photo a little differently. In my photo below I exposed for the background which was ISO 800, 1/60, 2.8 Then I added off camera flash that I bounced off the ceiling and dialed in the desired amount of flash compensation. Be careful using wide open apertures when shooting kids. I was able to get away with 2.8 because they were pretty still but ideally you'll want to shoot around 4.5-5.6 for this type of shot. I'm afraid if you use your 1.8 you'll be out of focus.

Exactly what I was thinking.

I have Googled before but never clicked on the link to a picture, only looked at pictures, when I click the link page for this picture there was the instruction on how they did it.
http://rubsomedirtblog​.com …as-lights-photo-tutorial/

I don't want all my Christmas photos like the one I posted the link to, Most of them I would like to be like the ones you guys posted, I hope I can come close to getting a few like you guys did.
Thanks for your help
Don