Family Christmas Tree - Questions ???

[texpic]

It is the season and everyone wants family Christmas Tree shot. How do you approach the close up shots? The full body shots (1 or 2 people)? Full body group (4 or more people)?

ISO
Aperture
Shutter
Lighting
Any lighting modifier/bounce

On wider shots, how do you deal with the wall background and shadows from flash?

I'm going to did some old pics out and see what I've done in previous years.

PLEASE post examples here, think this will be a helpful thread for all. Thanks and Merry Christmas.

[texpic]

TexPic.net | Christmas Tree

Here are 6 of my examples with EXIF data on most. Used strobes on most, some umbrella, some bounced ... one 580 flash unit.

[texpic]

looking at my pics, thinking tree is not green enough and you can tell i'm trying to avoid the tree as much as possible and zoom in on the people ... would like the tree to be more part of the pic if I could get the light right

also would be nice to see lit up bulbs

advice would be appreciated

[danchez]

wide open aperture, shutter speed around 1/60th and use ambient light, no flash. Hard to get the tree to sparkle when you are using flash.

[arich]

I was messing around with some tree shots with my family tonight. It will probably be a complete failure but I took 2 shots, 1 strobed and one ambient (I was mounted on a tripod) and I'm going to mess around with masking the tree and its surroundings in in PS. Probably will look hoooorrible lol