Night and low-light photography>>2. Adjust your camera settings

The key to getting a successful night shot like this is wide aperture, low ISO, and a slow shutter speed.
- Aperture
If your camera has manual settings, you can widen the aperture to allow more light to come through the camera lens (see above), which is vital at night when there isn't much light to begin with.

Select either the Av (Aperture priority) or M (Manual) shooting mode on your camera to adjust aperture. The widest opening for most lenses is f2.8.

- ISO
A camera's ISO number dictates its sensitivity to light. A higher ISO (a "fast" ISO) will make your camera more light-sensitive, but will add more grain (or "noise") to your photo. If your camera allows you to adjust ISO, set it low (somewhere around 50 or 100) for sharp detail in low-light. This setting will increase exposure time slightly, but will produce a much richer photo.

- Shutter
speedBecause you're not using your flash, your shutter speed has to be a lot slower to get enough light. The shutter speed in this shot was at least a few seconds-pretty slow in camera terms.

Select either the Tv (Shutter priority) or M (Manual) shooting mode on your camera to adjust shutter speed. The slowest shutter speeds on most cameras range from a few seconds to a "bulb" setting (shutter remains open as long as you want).

Several HP digital cameras feature a Night Scenery shooting mode. This automatically disables the flash and uses a long exposure time.