No question, Christmas markets are at their most beautiful after the sun has gone down and all the lights are twinkling and glowing.  However, capturing this festive atmosphere on film is not so easy.  First of all, it’s dark — so you have to know a little bit about how to use the various settings on your camera to account for this.  Second, it’s freezing cold — so after awhile your fingers go numb and you can’t play with your camera settings, even if you want to.  Third, the Christmas markets can get quite crowded, particularly in the evenings — which makes it hard to hold the camera steady without being jarred about.  And finally, you’ve usually had a mug of Glühwein or two to warm up — which doesn’t usually improve your fine motor skills or your patience for any of the above (ok, maybe that’s my own personal problem!).  In other words, I’m usually not so happy with the outcome of my attempts at photographing Christmas markets.

Despite a good deal of online searching, I couldn’t find much help specifically geared towards photographing Christmas markets, but I did find quite a bit for photographing lights.  In general, these websites — this one and this one were particularly helpful — suggest the following tips (aimed specifically at DSLR cameras, but these days a lot of it could also be applied to point-and-shoot cameras and smartphones too):

• Turn the flash off (duh).
• Shoot in manual mode and take the aperture down to around f/4 or so, or as low as it will go.
• Disable the automatic ISO setting and keep the ISO around 200 or 400, since taking it too much higher will reduce the quality of the photograph.
• Adjust the shutter speed so that it’s slow enough to let in enough light.
• Since the shutter speed is probably going to be too slow to allow for sharp shots with the camera in your hand, use a tripod to keep it steady.
• Finally, change the white balance to ‘incandescent’ or ‘tungsten’ to account for the orange glow incandescent Christmas lights usually give off.  (Or if you’re shooting in RAW format, this can be changed later during processing.)

So this year I studied up on how best to use the manual mode on my DSLR (I usually shoot with aperture priority), experimented at home with different shutter speeds, packed up my tripod, and headed out to photograph Christmas markets in Bremen…

I didn’t end up using the tripod as often as I would have liked, simply for lack of space because of the Saturday evening crowds.  Instead, I played around with how slow of a shutter speed I could use while keeping the camera steady in my hands.  Most of my photos ended up being underexposed, but since I shot in RAW, I was easily able to correct this during processing.  I definitely plan on learning a bit more about controlling the exposure while shooting, but one step at a time, I guess.  Also I didn’t change the white balance while shooting, but rather during processing.

In any case, there is still plenty of room for improvement — but if you compare these photos to my Christmas market photos from the last years, there is noticeable progress (in my eyes, at least)!  For my next photography outing, I want to go around dusk so I can also capture a bit of the sky as a contrast to the lights.  And it goes without saying, to make more use of slower shutter speeds, I really need to photograph on a less crowded evening (e.g., during the week) to allow for the use of my tripod.  I’m looking forward to giving it another try!

Do you have any tips for photographing Christmas markets or lights to share?

And last but not least, here are the all-important Christmas market statistics so far for 2013:

• Markets visited: 3 in Bremen, 4 in Hamburg
• Bags of Schmalzkuchen: 2
• Mugs of Glühwein: 1