Night shots with Canon SD750

Guys help me out here. I just got my tri pod and wanted to take some pics of the night from my balcony. I used specs from Canon website of sample pics they have for SD cameras. So this pic was taken with Manual mode, ISO 200, shutter 1.3, white balance Auto, Evaluative. What settings should I use to make the pic look better and sharper and more vibrant like sample image on canon wesite of the shot of bridge in London I think?

http://i257.photobucke​t.com …sov/Nighttestsh​ots002.jpg

Outsized image changed to link

Jon

Care to provide a link to the Canon images you're referring to?

From your picture alone, I'd say the large, brightly-lit square is helping force the rest of the scene into the dark.

Here it is Jon, and specs used by canon, I copied and pasted them from the site:

Shooting Mode:Manual

Tv (Shutter Speed):1.3

Aperture Value (Av):5.0

Metering Mode:Evaluative

Exposure Compensation:0

ISO Speed:80

Lens:6.6 - 33.0mm

Focal Length:20.4mm

Digital Zoom:None

Image Stabilizer:On

Image Size:3648 x 2736

Image Quality:SuperFine

Flash:off

White Balance:Auto

AF mode:Single AF

Parameters:
Contrast: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Color Saturation: Normal

File Size:4018KB

Drive Mode:Self-timer Operation

http://www.usa.canon.c​om …sampleimg/sampl​eimg_3.JPG

Yep. They're seriously blowing out the lights by dialing in some Exposur Compensation while you haven't. I also suspect there are some lights on the bridge for their shot which aren't showing.

From the Exif details in the photo you appear to have used "Spot" as the metering mode. As an experiment why don't you also try taking it in "Evaluative" and also "Center Weighted Avg". It can't hurt and may give you a few more ideas. I find that if I get a photo that is not what I expected , I take several others of the same scene using many different parameters and quite often (not always though) get a much better photo. Just a thought.