You might take a look at my "boo!!" post below. I used a scene setting called Night Portrait for this. It utilizes flash. I was happy with the results, and think it might be good for Christmas decorations as well. Unfortunately, I don't know what the manual settings would be.

I tried Night Scenery (no flash involved), but only the jack-o-lantern's cut-outs showed up.

Susan

I always shoot full manual for night photos with a tripod, now I have a remote to help reduce tripod vibrations from pressing on the button, should go further and use mirror lockup (MLU), but haven't. The easiest way to start would be to find a photo you like that you took in night portrait mode and look at the exif (you need to find the shutter speed and aperture). I would turn off the flash and use a longer shutter speed to compensate, you will kind of have to guess and watch your lcd.

If you don't have an exif viewer, I downloaded a freebie a few years back which is very helpful, don't know if it is still available, but you can go to windows explorer, navigate to the photo, right click on the photo, click properties, click on the summary tab you see at the top, if it says advanced, click on that, and all your info should come up. If the tab on the bottom says simple, click on it to get advanced.

For 4th of July, I pre-focussed before it got dark, then switched over to manual without moving my camera, used ISO 100 to keep the noise down. I've got one that turned out ok using f8 at 1 sec. This one isn't all that great, but I shot it at f8 for 10 sec. Most of them at least turned out, some better than others.

{{!gwi}}

The problem might be focussing in low light. Sometimes you have to use manual focus and do it yourself however your camera works for that, mine has a focus ring. I don't know if your AF will work or not, depending on the lighting of the scene, might as well try. The only way to learn to shoot night shots is to start practicing. I messed up a bunch before I got any good ones.

To get the twinkle light effect, choose an aperture around f9, and adjust the shutter speed accordingly, 10 seconds us usually a little too long, try a bunch of different shutter speeds down to 1 sec, you can always delete them later.

You can always try your night scene mode first, but normally you can't get them if you try to hand hold the camera. If you don't have a tripod, you can set the camera on a bag of beans on a stool or whatever you have and use the timer.

It was the second poster who used night portrait mode, so you will have to start from scratch and find what works best for you.

Thanks Susan & Aliska. I'll just have to practice & be patient. By the way Susan, love your "boo" pic.