O Christmas Tree

We don't have any presents under the tree yet, but I wanted to experiment with taking some pictures and getting some different effects.
So here's what I did. For this one I turned the manual focus on and blurred my picture just a little.
Because of the low light situation I had my shutter speed at 1/60 and my aperture at 1.4fFor this one I left my setting the same, the only thing I changed was bringing the picture into focus.


Now with this next one you can see what a difference it makes simply by changing your shutter speed. When photographing Christmas lights, you can achieve a really bright look by leaving you shutter open longer. For this one I set the shutter at 1/10.

These aren't ideal.. I obviously need to move that air filter propped up against the wall.. but you get the idea. If you have a camera that you can actually control the settings on, I encourage you to experiment!