need settings advice for night flying pictures/ cannon eos kiss 4x

[evamodel00]

Hey guys! I am pretty new when it comes to digital photography, and I just wanted to get some opinions.
I am going to be going on a night flight soon through NYC and am hoping to get some great photos... However, whenever I fly at night I can never get any good pictures. The shutter speed is always increased on auto setting so I get blurry lights all over the place. Tough to keep it completely stationary on a small aircraft.
Anyways, can anyone recommend a specific mode or set of settings that could get me some good pictures on my trip? My camera has A-DEP, M, Av, Tv, P, and CA as far as manual modes go. I am not a professional by any means though so i basically just use auto all the time.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! I wanna snag some awesome shots!

 

[grafxman]

You're basically talking about taking a photo under adverse lighting conditions. I suggest these settings which will allow you to use your camera like a point and shoot except you can use the viewfinder. Set the camera to manual and set the aperture to wide open. Once in the air take photos at various shutter speeds until you get a photo that isn't blurred. The camera will select the appropriate ISO. The only problem with this approach is the camera may select an extremely high ISO, above 3200, which will result in very noisy photos. You should be able to set the upper ISO limit in your camera. If so I suggest 3200 as the upper limit. Don't be dismayed if your photos come out extremely dark. Many photos can be salvaged with software. I just use Canon's DPP software which came with the camera. It's pretty good at brightening images that are dark or even completely black. It's noise reduction is pretty good too.

Photographing under the conditions you describe will be difficult. I suggest you take the settings I have provided and go out at night and take some photos under street lights. Just play around will various settings such as shutter speed and aperture and see how they affect the photos. Note that a smaller aperture increases the depth of field, that is to say more things will be in focus in front of and behind whatever you're photographing. Since you will be airborne and everything will a long ways off you may not need much depth of field unless you shooting a horizon and you want the foreground in focus. Notice how higher shutter speeds will stop movement but too high will darken the image. Slower shutter speeds will cause camera movement blur. Put the photos into your computer and practice brightening dark images. Practice on the ground and you should be OK in the air. I hope this helps. Good luck.