Night Time shooting for a newbie

Please could you help, as I have said many times before on here, I am new to the world of digital photography and as such do not have a lot of knowledge. I am hoping to do some night time shooting at Brighton tomorrow night. I am going to be there anyway so wanted to wait until after dark to get some photos of the pier all lit up. I have got a tripod so will use that but please could any of you offer me some help or advice on how to get the best shots. Please try and use layman's terms as I am still learning the 'jargon' along with everything else and thoroughly enjoying the whole process.

Many thanks

Blackjack1,
First I suggest you put what equipment you have in your signature so we can answer your questions easier.

Not knowing what you have or even the area of shooting, I still can recommend using mirror lockup and set your shutter to fire via the self-timer setting.

I suggest you explore different settings on your camera to get what you like

Told you I was a novice !!!

I have got a Canon 300D, so not a particularly up to date model, the kit lens and a 75-200. Very basic but it is doing me ok at the moment.

Any help that anyone could give really would be appreciated.

Thanks

Some of the best "night shots" I've seen were taken before it's totally dark while there's still some light left in the sky. You don't need much, but you need some.
Lets See Your 30 sec. exposures

Brighton, MI? Say "Hi!" here: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=118688

PhotosGuy wrote in post #7418502
Brighton, MI? Say "Hi!" here: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=118688

Frank, could be Brighton UK?

Anyway, I'd go with your 18-55 kit lens, tripod or solid steady surface of any kind. If you have no shutter cable use the camera's self timer.

Put the camera into Av or M. Set the aperture to somewhere between f/8 to f/16 and in Av your shutter speed will be set for you but if in M you will need to select your shutter speed and you can experiment with different slow speeds to see what effects you get and which you like. Also, keep your camera set at iso 100 to help keep noise to a minimum.

If you can, also get a few shots of the pier with the sunset.

And come and say hi in the UK SE thread if it's the UK Brighton!

I like to use: Tripod, mirror lockup, 2 second timer, ISO 100, AV mode at F8-11.

Blackjack1 wrote in post #7417199
wanted to wait until after dark to get some photos of the pier all lit up.

Don't wait until after dark. Be there earlier.
You get a way better balance when there's some daylight left.

In my experience, you have about 15 minutes to get the shot: Before that it's too light, after that, it's too dark.

Your exposure settings are determined by how bright you want the lights (and the parts lit by them) to be. The light intensity of those won't change. Therefore, I'd strongly suggest using M. The ambient exposure will alter for you all by itself

This is an old shot, on film, where I was a bit too early
(unedited scan, not color managed screenshot)

You can do fine with your 300D and kit lens.

That's exactly what I used for this shot. I rested the camera on the railing of my motel room's deck and used Av mode, 18mm at f/3.5. I wanted the shot to look dark (because it was dark) so I adjusted the exposure compensation to -1.

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