How do you take a night shot with digital camera?

Answer 1

The method is pretty much the same for digital or SLR film cameras.

If the shutter speed is less than the minimum guideline for hand-held imaging (1/ focal length of lens) a tripod will be necessary. Also required would be a camera:

capable of manual control of the shutter speed and aperture, or

with the ability to change exposure values by plus or minus (e.g. +-1/3; +-2/3, etc.)

Nice to have would be the ability to select alternate metering modes suitable for the subject at hand along with an understanding of metering concepts. The choice to over-expose or under-expose (or neither) depends on the ratio of bright lights to black background and requires that understanding. As a brief example:

Let's say the subject is a lighted Ferris wheel that almost fills the frame. A shot taken at the recommended aperture/shutter combination will likely result in the wheel lights being under-exposed by about 1 1/2 stops. This is due to the fact that the meter is balanced for 18% gray, thus the recommendation will be attempting to render the prominent lights at that level of brilliance. Over exposure of about 1 to 1 1/2 stops is called for. Conversely, if the bright portion of the image is a small part of a black background, the same averaging meter will be influenced by the darkness and present an exposure value that will attempt to render it as 18% gray when it is much less than that. This will be tempered somewhat by the bright portion of the scene, but the resulting image will likely be one where the bright object is over-exposed by about 1 stop. Therefore, this type of scene requires under-exposure.

For a camera with an exposure value compensation control, it is as easy as setting the control for a + or - value as you see fit. For one without, a standard meter reading is taken, then the aperture and/or shutter speed is manually set in accordance to what is thought to be needed. One thing that the world of digital has done is that it has provided the ability to alter improperly exposed images to some degree, using computer software. The downside to this is that the need to learn the fine points of exposure may have become less important to some.