But all in all, a good little article on the basics of night photography. We at Artisan HD live in the heat of the desert, so shooting at night may at least be a bit cooler.

Night photography technique: “With the camera held firmly in place you can fire the shutter and make the most of the long speed. But don’t think it’s always that easy. Often night photography has huge areas of the scene in darkness with occasional illuminated areas subjects, such as spotlit buildings, moonlit trees, fireworks, fairground illuminations, neon signs etc. The camera’s exposure meter isn’t used to such scenes and may need some manual help. It’s here where the benefits of digital become evident. You can take a picture on auto and preview the scene. If it looks too dark, or the illuminated area is too washed out you simply manually adjust the camera’s exposure using the compensation setting and try again and repeat until you have the right balance.”

And this from Black’s is worth reading.

Fortunately, you can quickly and easily learn how to take better nighttime and low-light photographs and, in the process, learn how to better control your camera so you can take better pictures in all conditions. However, digital cameras do not have a standard interface. Even though cameras from different manufacturers (and even different models by a single manufacturer) may have common features, these features are not implemented in a uniform way. Please read your camera’s manual to learn which of these features are available to you, and how to use them. Also, terms may vary from one manufacturer from the next. If you don’t find a feature below listed in your camera’s manual, it may have another name. Look for a similar function and see if you can use it to accomplish the same thing.

A welcome item may be this nice little night exposure calculator to carry with you.

And here is a rich post over at FredParker.com. Lots to read and know.

Night photography offers a great deal of different effects, as seen on apogeephoto.com.

And a search on Flickr reveals this stunning collection. Enjoy.