Stunning night photographs using long exposure

During a recent vacation to a nearby beach, I decided to get some use out of my SLIK Pro 340 tripod by experimenting with long exposures at night.  With the right equipment and proper camera settings, you can get stunning photographs.  Check out the results below.  Although these photos might appear to have been taken at dusk or down, all three were taken long after sunset (10:00PM or later).

Some tips for using long exposure at night:

• A good, sturdy tripod is a necessity
• Use a low ISO (ISO 100 or lower if available) - do not follow my examples below
• Learn how to use the manual settings on your camera: manual focusing, metering and setting exposure manually using spot metering and AE lock features.  Manual focus is key.  Unless you are taking a close up shot using an "auto illuminate" feature, your camera will not auto focus in the dark.  Spot metering is also very important - your camera can distinguish much more than the human eye can in the dark.
• Because there is little risk of blowing highlights when there is no light source in the frame, err on the side of overexposure versus underexposure - an overexposed night shot can be recovered more easily in post processing.  An underexposed shot can also be recovered (to a degree) however, usually not without amplifying noise.

Enjoy,
   30West

4 sec @ f/4.5 (ISO 200)

 8 sec @ f/5.6 (ISO 560)

0.7 sec @ f/4.0 (ISO 800)