Christmas Lights 2018- Sydney (Hills District)

Each year, we head out to Castle Hill as night falls, to see the Christmas lights. This year, with a new member in our family, we did the same. To add to this, I decided to leave all my regular camera gear at home (including a tripod), and just bring along my wife's Sony RX100 mark 3, to see if it could handle the conditions. Here is my report:

Sadly, I wasn't able to give the camera a good test in low-light because there wasn't much to photograph. Grandoaks Place used to be the best, with many houses spectacularly adorned with thousands of lights. This year, only a few houses made the effort. It's hard to know whether it's the hard times (I do not want to imagine how much the electricity bill would be), or perhaps the houses have new owners who are not so into Christmas lights. After all, I'm sure it would take weeks (if not months) of planning and setup to get the houses done so beautifully.

On the way back to our house, we drove through Thornleigh. There were a few nice "Christmasy" places but it is clear that this year, fewer families are doing the Christmas light thing. The malls still seem to be pretty busy though, even as the cost of living (and the cost of buying Christmas presents) continue to rise whilst many people's incomes are not rising at the same pace.

We might venture out to another suburb on another night, but on this night, it probably would have been more productive to have stayed home.

Here is a quick video that I made of the trip. The footage is a bit noisy as it was shot entirely on an iPhone.

Catch you next time!

D