Bill Emmett Loc: Bow, New Hampshire

I am planning a trip to the French Quarter, to photograph Jackson Square, with all the Christmas lights, after dark. I will be shooting with a Canon EOS 50D, using a Tamron 18-270 zoom. My shot plan is: Shoot from across Decatur St. through the Square, centering on St. Louis Cathedral. The Cathedral is always lighted, the bushes in the Square will have lights in them, and the park will be lit. The zoom on the camera will be set to get the max shot of the Square. I know I will have to set my camera on "bulb" mode. I will shoot at f5 to F8. My question is how do I determine the shutter time? I know my ISO will be a factor too. I'm thinking of using as low ISO as possible, probably 100-300.

traveler90712 Loc: Lake Worth, Fl.

If I were you, I'd do a search and Christmas light, Xmas lights. The subject has been discussed many times.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Check this Strobist article out:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-photograph-christmas-lights.html

RTR Loc: West Central Alabama

I think this is going to be tough. The church is going to be much brighter than the Christmas lights so I suspect that if you expose for the Christmas lights the church will be blown out. I hope someone here has some ideas for you.

LouT Loc: Maryland

HDR???

RTR Loc: West Central Alabama

LouT has a good idea in HDR. I usually shy away from HDR because I don't like the weird look people like to create with HDR. But layering a few of shots, one exposed correctly for St. Louis Cathedral and one or two exposed for differing levels of brightness on the Christmas lights will probably work nicely.

To answer your original question regarding shutter speed, the shot exposed for the church should be easy. Just let the camera do it by metering on the church. The Christmas lights will probably take some trial and error.

Erv Loc: Medina Ohio

If you can, get there just before it gets dark and try a few shots. As it gets darker it is hard to balance the bright lights and the small colored lights.
Erv

PrairieSeasons Loc: Red River of the North

Why do you want low ISO? ISO 2000, f/5.6, 1/30 sec

Bill Emmett Loc: Bow, New Hampshire

I don't think HDR will work with this shot. There will be movement of people walking in the park, and cars traveling on Decatur St. The cars will add more light pollution to the shot. Every moment of time will change the entire setup. It will be a tough shot. I'll post it after I do it.

pixbyjnjphotos Loc: Apache Junction,AZ

This picture was taken with a NIKON D80 using a Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 lens with VC on a tripod. It was shot just after sundown so not in total darkness. The picture is basically straight out of the camera. It was taken into Paint Shop Pro X5 Ultimate only to resize from the camera image to 6x5 inches at 300 dpi and slight crop. I also painted the name sign in the front window. No other adjustments were made. Meta Data, which should be available with the picture, shows Manual mode, no flash, 1/10 sec, +1.67 EV, F3.2, ISO 200, lens at widest setting of 17mm, and spot metering mode. You should be able to see that the sun had just set below the horizon by the reflection in the windows on the right side of the picture. I love to shoot just after sundown.

Available Light shot of lights

Bill Emmett Loc: Bow, New Hampshire

Here is what the shot will look like. This was taken last weekend during a early morning Meetup shoot.

Jackson Square, from across Decatur St

R.G. Loc: Scotland

If you expose for the cathedral, you may find that the lights take care of themselves. In any case, this might be your best option (in addition to all the previous suggestions - HDR, high ISO etc). I suspect that a tripod or monopod may be a necessity for getting the best results.

lhdiver Loc: Midwest

Be sure to shoot in RAW & get as close as you can on exposer then, if needed, you can do most small corrections in pp. LR4 brush tool or Hue/saturation/luminance can work wonders.

Willy Loc: Alaska

I have an exposure calculator app on my phone.
Here's how I use it: Set f/stop to where you want it on Aperture priority so that camera selects the shutter speed. Boost your ISO and take some test shots so that you get what you are looking for. Enter these settings into the app. Now lower your ISO to where you want it and tell the app to recalculate for the new setting. It will calculate the new shutter speed. It can also recalculate f/stop, shutter speed & ISO.
Or, learn how to do the math and calculate it yourself.
Personally, I would rather go to the dentist than try to remember and do the math.
A low ISO will result in a slow shutter speed. This will be good for removing the people from the scene. They will blur themselves out of existence.

I agree with Erv, get there before dark. Take some shots just before the sky goes black. I think your best shots will be taken when the sky is cobalt blue.

Best of luck and enjoy your trip!

( I just looked at the app and I can't find the author so I can't post that.
It should be easy to find though. It is simply called "Exposure Calculator" )

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

The easiest way I've found is in Aperture Priority. Set to f/10 and let the camera decide the shutter speed - it works very well. F/10 makes the small lights very sharp with little blur. Tripod of course and your camera's 10-second self timer to avoid any blur.

The shutter will change from shot to shot depending on the amount of light of course but I think you'll find it works pretty well. I've posted a couple of examples at f/10 as I stated above.

f/10 aperture priority


f/10 aperture priority, manual focus.