Dodging/Burning *in-camera* for Christmas lights (and others)

[Rajah Sulayman]

NOTE: All images SOOC RAWs with zero processing

While doing some shooting out in the city tonight, I found myself faced with the age-old problem of shooting Christmas lights at night: either I get the lights and underexpose everything else, or I get everything else and blow out the lights.

Here's an example of the latter:



As I was surveying the scene, however, an idea came to me to try dodging the lights in-camera. In a darkroom, you would dodge parts of an image by holding a card between the enlarger and the paper. By doing so, all the areas that weren't blocked would become brighter while the covered area stayed the same exposure, thus giving the result of a darker area.

No reason it couldn't work in-camera.

I decided to use my black leather wallet as the "card." While sighting the shot in the viewfinder, I held the wallet in front of the lens so that it covered just the area I wanted to dodge (in this case, the 'tree' of lights on frame right). I made sure to hold the wallet a few inches in front of the lens (instead of directly in front of it) to help feather the edges a little.

With my free hand, I then pressed the shutter release. I had set the camera for a 2-second exposure, and after counting a little more than a second, I pulled the wallet away.

This was the result:



It's not perfect, and if you look closely you can clearly see where I'd held the wallet, but I had managed to get the shot without blowing out the lights. I can later use a light grad filter in Lightroom to brighten up the area a smidge, knowing that the lights will still look relatively sharp and not bleed all over the image.

Anyway, that's my tip. For all I know this is an age-old technique and I was one of the few people who didn't know about it. But even if that's the case, if there's so much as one other person out there who'd never thought of this, then my post was worth the effort.

Here's another shot I had done earlier. You can see from the shadows that my wallet had bee held further left (thus darkening the Macy's sign). The more you can isolate just the lights with your card, the better.

[Stryker]

Excellent idea and execution, rajah. This seems like a simple solution to a complex problem. I will definitely try this out when I get the chance. Good work.

[kencaleno]

Very well done-I have just "Burned-in" some details to finish the job: I lassoed the building at the right of the lights,and then the foreground and used shadow/highlight at default settings. Ken

( We used to use a black glove for in-camera dodging.)

[CaptainNH]

Great improvisation there Rajah.

Blazing Christmas lights are always a challenge, I've resorted to the Grad ND in the past.

Your shot makes me wonder how an HDRed Christmas light shot might turn out. Maybe a weekend project........

[PomND]

fantastic solution. thanks so much for this, will really help tomorrow as I'm going to a christmas market

[yrot.tory]

superb! love the first picture!!

[zona5101]

improvise, adapt and overcome!
well done.

[Rajah Sulayman]

Thanks, all! I realize that I could achieve the same thing (better, too) with a graduated filter, but a) I didn't have one on me and b) a graduated filter is split down the middle, which makes it tough to selectively dodge portions of the image.

I might actually start carrying a black card in my bag for cases like this, where I need to selectively dodge areas in the photo in order to maintain detail. I can see it coming in especially handy for nighttime landscapes where the moon just bleeds way too much.

[dakwegmo]

It's always cool to see how people improvise to solve problems like this in the field. Landscape photographers often use neutral density filters the same way, though instead of holding it in front of the spot for part of the exposure, they wave it over the areas to be dodged throughout the exposure. This keeps the filter from leaving an impression in the image.

Originally Posted by rajah sulayman

Thanks, all! I realize that I could achieve the same thing (better, too) with a graduated filter, but a) I didn't have one on me and b) a graduated filter is split down the middle, which makes it tough to selectively dodge portions of the image.

Are you sure you're thinking graduated ND and not split ND filters. Graduated filters have a softer transition and given the composition of your shot, held sideways (so it's graduated from left to right) one of these would have probably worked perfectly.

[vijaysanand]

Thats an amazing tip. I never knew about that. I will put this into action too whenever I faced with this situation. Thats buddy. I appreciate this!