Picture of the Day: Nighttime by the Water

Photo by: Laurent.GL.

Found this image in the “Night” tag on Flickr. Cool shot. I love the reflection of the buildings coming off the water. If you’re thinking of taking night pictures like this, then there’s one thing you need to understand: it’s all available light, so it’s all long exposures. In this case, the image was taken with a 2 second exposure. I wouldn’t hand hold that if I were you, so a tripod is definitely necessary. This leaves the shutter open long enough for the distant lights of the city to burn into the image. There’s also a relatively small aperture (f/8.0) which gives you a decent depth of field; that’s pretty normal for landscape/architectural work.