Outdoor Christmas Lights

[goomba]

Hi there! I am new to this site and am looking for suggestions on what settings to use for taking pictures of outdoor Christmas Lights. (I have a Canon 50D with a 70-200 2.8 lens). If anyone can offer any suggestions, I would really appreciate it! Thank you!

[teaking]

for out door lights I would probably either use manual or AV aperture priority mode as Im assuming the lights would the main subject and be across the scene very much like a landscape?

If thats the case you want focus through the whole scene so using AV you can select a small apreture around F8-13. You may have to add - EV exposure compensation but thats something you can play around with.

Other wise you could use TV shutter priority and start at 1 second shutter speed and take varying shots at hight shutter speeds this way would probably bring more of the background out.

If you have trouble focusing you may have to use manual focus.