How to photograph a Christmas tree?

Question

I know this is a little (okay, more than a little) early but it's always bugged me. How in the heck do you photograph a Christmas tree so that it looks similar to how it really looks? Below are two failed attempts from last year. I have a pretty decent camera, it's the operator that needs improvement!!

http://s334.photobucket.com/albums/m439/jash83/?action=view&current=359.jpg

http://s334.photobucket.com/albums/m439/jash83/?action=view&current=365.jpg

Thanks everyone!

Answer 1

You'll never quite get it to look the same way it does to the eye because your eye has a wider dynamic range than a picture. I thought the ornament wasn't bad. Shooting lit only by christmas lights gives a nice effect. You can also experiment with a little bit of fill light, like a lamp across the room set on low, maybe. The same approach works on the whole tree.

Your whole tree picture has too much else in the frame, and also would benefit from having more of the light come from the tree. You also had a focus problem. Like many cameras, yours focused on the nearest thing, which was the chair, not the tree. You need to either make the autofocus choose the tree, or use manual focus.

Anyhow, here's one I shot a few years ago with a 3MP Powershot. The exposure was 1/2.5 at f:2,8, on a tripod. It was a manual exposure, but that's basically about a 1-stop overexposure on auto: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spondulix/2...