Shooting cityscapes after dark can produce some incredible images.
Here we provide a few guides to technique for capturing images at night.

When to shoot
o Aim for twilight for rich dark blue sky
o Too early – sky and ambient light is too high
o Too late – sky becomes totally black and featureless

Technique
o Tripod and remote release, or use self-timer
o Switch off image stabilisation when shooting on a tripod
o Aperture priority
o Use manual daylight white balance, rather than auto, to preserve
the orange glow of artificial light
o A small aperture and low ISO will give long exposure times and may even eliminate moving people from a night scene
o Don’t ignore compositional techniques

Light trails
o Very small aperture (f/22-f/32) and low ISO to give long exposure for capturing light trails from moving vehicles

Silhouettes
o Select a subject with a strong, recognisable, shape (e.g. tree, church tower)
o Expose for the background lights

Experiment
o Try different settings in aperture priority
o Use manual exposure and try over- or under-exposing compared with the camera’s “correct” metering
o Learn from mistakes