My first try at night time photos

[Nascar Nut]

Trying to learn how to take night time photos. I took about 10 different photos of the capital building. This is the one that turned out the best. I really don't have a clue what I am doing. Just read different posts and kinda tried to learn from that. What can I do to make this turn out better. Seems like the street lights are to bright.

http://nascarnut1963.home.mchsi.com/temp/6.jpg

Thanks for any imput you can give me. I really want to learn how to take night time shots. I have seen some great photos posted on here.

Firmware: Firmware Version 1.1.1
Date/Time: 2004:08:06 21:36:06
Shutter speed: 0.3 sec
Aperture: 2.5
Exposure mode: Program
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Evaluative
Drive mode: Single frame shooting
Self-timer: 10 secs
ISO: 100
Lens: 50.0 mm
Focal length: 50.0mm
AF mode: AI Focus AF
Image size: 3072 x 2048
Rotation: none
Image quality: Fine
White balance: Auto
Color space: sRGB
Saturation: High
Sharpness: High
Contrast: High
Tone: Normal

[Drbeagle]

Crop out the street light on the left and that will be an amazing shot. I hardly even notice the smaller street lights. There's not much you can do about them anyway

[redbutt]

It looks like you got the idea down. Lowest ISO you can use and self timer to avoid camera shake. The rest is trial and error and you will find what works best for you.

[PhotosGuy]

The best time for "Night time" pics like that, is BEFORE it gets totally dark, so you have some light in the sky & the contrast range is smaller.
Try it on some buildings at home & you'll see what I mean. Shoot a pic every 5-10 minutes for an hour, STARTING 1/2 hour before sunset.

[4walls]

You can also try using f/8 and then you will get a different effect from the
light sources.

[Nascar Nut]

Thank you for your imput. I went back downtown last night and took some more photos. Went up to f8 and seem to be a little better. A little more sharp. I did not make it down there before dark though. I am going to try that to.

[4walls]

Here is one I took the other night...
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=268180#268180