Photographing Cityscapes at Night

Photographing cityscapes at night may seem daunting, but with a steady tripod, a cable release and a few tips, you can easily capture fascinating images after dark. My favorite time to photograph cityscapes, such as downtown Nashville or San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, is when the sky turns soft shades of purple and blue, which is usually 20 to 30 minutes after sunset. When that evening setting is combined with subjects that have artificial lighting, you get an image that is widely colorful and romantic, such as the Eiffel Tower.
Downtown Nashville from the Gateway Bridge
San Francisco at Night

Timing is crucial for night photography—wait for the sky to become as brilliant as the subject so you can produce an evenly lit image. When taking photos of city skylines, I would suggest seeking a vantage point that can, if possible, incorporate water into the scene. Compositionally, water beautifully reflects the city lights and also helps fill the frame evenly with light. Downtown Vancouver

Night photography is a balance of available light, exposure and aperture, so you may have to compromise one factor to utilize another. First, you should know that the speckles from digital noise increase as the ISO increases (sensitivity of the film or chip to light—400 or higher) or as the exposure becomes longer. Example of Digital Noise

To avoid digital noise, keep your ISO rating low (100–200) and find a nice balance between the exposure and aperture settings. Digital noise can usually be kept under control if you keep your exposure to under 20 seconds. You can start out with your camera on AF mode (Aperture Priority), but as the light dims, you’ll likely end up setting your camera on B, or Bulb, mode.
Waikiki at Night

Now, with digital noise in mind, think about how much depth of field your scene requires. If it’s still light enough for your eyes to discern detail in the shadow areas, then you might want to keep the settings at f/11 or lower. Remember, the higher the aperture setting—16, 22, 32—the greater your depth of field; however, the compromise is that you’ll likely need to increase your overall exposure to over 30 seconds (which also increases the noise). So, if it’s only slightly dim outside, a setting of f/8 or f/11 might be a nice compromise for maintaining a decent depth of field while still keeping the exposure reasonably short. When using a lower aperture setting, such as 4 or 5.6, you’ll capture more ambient light in the scene with a shorter overall exposure, but the depth of field will decrease and the details in the shot might not be quite as crisp.
Tower Bridge

If you have a point-and-shoot camera, a simple way to capture cityscapes at night is to turn your camera to auto, place it on a tripod, turn off your flash and set the self timer. If the image turns out too dark, turn your +/- meter to +1 or +2; if the image looks too light, turn your exposure compensation setting to – 1 or -2. Also, some cameras have a night-scene setting or slow sync mode, which can be used for taking portraits at night and still pick up the details in the background.
Colosseum

Now it’s your turn to give it a try: About 20 minutes after sunset on a clear day, place your camera firmly upon a steady tripod in front of a twinkling cityscape. Set your camera’s ISO to 100 or 200, adjust the mode to manual, adjust the shutter speed to B (Bulb) and then adjust the camera’s aperture to f/8. Using a cable release, experiment by exposing your scene in two-second increments—the darker it gets, the longer your exposure—and you should see right away what exposure is the best for your shot. Once you have the target exposure, you can then experiment with the aperture settings, adjusting the exposure again if you want. The settings are really up to you and what your subject requires, so I encourage you to take several shots with different aperture settings to find what you like best. Also, play around with photographing traffic with a slow shutter speed—it can add a sense of “hustle and bustle” to your cityscape.