Planning to shoot my our water front

justashot · Sep 11, 2009

So i'm planning to head downtown and catch a photo of our beautiful water front.

I want to catch all the city lights.
Can anyone give me some tips on how to get a good shot

It will be pretty dark as its 8:30pm here in Toronto

chammer · Sep 11, 2009

make sure you bring your tripod!

i dont know what camera you have, but can also use the mirror lockup feature as well as either using a remote trigger or self timer to get sharper shots.

Derrel · Sep 11, 2009

Make absolutely SURE that your lens front element and rear element are spotless. You can try using some smaller apertures, like f/11, to get a sort of starburst effect on point light sources like street lamps and such,especially if the area is brightly lighted and the exposure times are not overly long.

If you have long exposure noise reduction enabled, it will take a long time to write the file to the memory card; the shot might take 30 seconds at f/8 at ISO 200, and then another 30 seconds while the long exposure noise reduction software in the camera works to eliminate the noise caused by doing a lengthy exposure.

Not sure how well you camera handles long exposures; many sensors show random noise on longer exposures, and amp noise on really lengthy exposures. You might want to try starting with moderately wide apertures like f/5.6 at ISO 200. Shooting in RAW mode will give the best ultimate quality.

Bring the tripod, and use the self-timer or a wireless remote to trigger off each shot. If it i cool, make sure your hand doesn't get too close to the front of the lens--that can cause lens fogging during a certain temperature window. Bring a small flashlight too, to help with camera adjustments in the dark. You might need to focus manually,also; many AF systems have a tough time with night time autofocusing.