How to Blur Christmas Lights in Background | Utah Photographer

When I was learning to shoot in manual mode on my DSLR one of the first things I wanted to be able to do was to learn how to blur Christmas lights in background. I wanted to be able to get the neat bokeh and to actually know how to get it.

Back then, I played around until I could get something close to what I wanted. Now that I have a better idea of what I’m doing, I thought I’d create a tutorial for you that will walk you through the steps for how to blur Christmas lights in background.

This is a tutorial that will work either at night or durning the day. I chose to shoot durning the day to get brighter images.

You will need to be shooting in manual mode for this tutorial and be familiar with the exposure triangle (ISO, aperture, and shutter speed).

How to blur Christmas lights in pictures

The best tip to get different types of bokeh is to manually adjust your focus using your lens. Most lens can be adjusted manually. Simply dial the front of the lens to adjust the focus. Now, we’ll come back to this in a moment.

I shot all of these images on a Canon 5d Mark 4 and a 50mm. I would recommend a 35mm or a 50mm. You could probably use an 18-55mm just fine too (your aperture just won’t be able to get as wide).

1. To start, manually adjust your settings for proper exposure. Try to keep your ISO under 500 to avoid excessive grain and try to keep your shutter speed in the double digits to avoid excessive blur. I would shoot with your aperture around 2.2 to get that yummy bokeh!
2. Once you have your exposure set, automatically adjust your focus on an item that is FURTHER away from you than your tree is. Then, point your camera back at the tree, the lights should be blurry now. Without re-focusing, take a few shots. This is how I got the shots of the tree lights blurred.
3. Once you have the base set, you can play around with the size of the bokeh by manually adjusting your lens focus.
4. If you want a shot of your child or dog in front of the tree, set the exposure and then focus on your baby (the subject) with the lights in the background, then the lights will be blurred.

All of these images were shot at:

ISO 400 f/2.2 1/60 

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