night time shooting in bright places

[rsturbo]

does anyone know a good way of setting a digital camera to take good shot at night in places like times square or the strip in vagas at night but with lots of neon around tried various settings but struggle to get a good shot
thanks to any one who can help

[mrmr96]

Sorry, I don't know if this advice is obvious because I don't know how experienced you are currently. Basic technique is to use a long shutter (like 1.5 to 3 secs or so) and clearly you'll need a tripod. If you need more detail on which ISO to use etc, then someone will be along to help. HTH

[_dobbo_]

Low ISO, tripod, slow shutter speed of at least a couple of seconds. If you don't have a tripod and can't find anywhere to rest the camera so that it wont move (even a tiny bit) then use high ISO, and a fast shutter speed.

Long exposures look best - I managed to grab this from Vegas before my battery died (6 seconds @ ISO100):



And this last year in Japan (30 seconds @ ISO 200):



Edited to fix broken picture link and add another example - this is handheld, fast shutter speed as it was bright enough to get away with it:

Edited by _dobbo_ on Sunday 18th November 17:02

[Buzz word]

That was 1/4 sec at ISO 200. I have a pretty basic camera, just a rubbish compact really. I give stuff like this a go. Could probably be done better with a proper tripod but my cam wont open for more than 8 secs so the really cool long exposures are beyond me. I look for a flat edge and use a 2 second timer. anything I can't get at under a second at ISO 200 I don't try for, it just gets too noisy or there is a blur introduced by tiny movements. I think I am going to take the plunge soon and get a proper SLR and a tripod as i do like night pics.
It looks like a camera with a lens lesser than a 38mm equiv. could be good too.

[bobda]

It very much depends what level of camera you're using. As has been said above, a long shutter speed with a tripod and no flash (although you can still use flash if you want to light up the foreground) is the way to go. If you're using a point and shoot camera, you should still be able to manually override the flash and turn it off completely - the cameras auto-settings should do the rest.

[Greg964]

Apart from a tripod, remember to use the self-timer to fire the shot.