You can take very good photographs of Christmas lights with inexpensive point and shoot cameras. The real trick with photographing christmas lights is the time of the day.

If you wait til its completely dark out then either the background or the lights will get blown out. You will want to arrive somewhere between sunset and when its completely dark out.

If your camera has a white balance setting (check your manual) you want to set it to the Tungsten settings. Most christmas lights are tungsten lights. Also make sure the flash doesn’t fire. You don’t want the bright flash ruining your pretty photographs

Since you will be photographing in low light you will need some steady support, otherwise you may get blurry photographs. If you don’t have a tripod, really anything will work from a bean bag to the top of your car.

Here are a few photos of the holiday season.