St. Petersburg Florida downtown skyline at night from The Pier - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 20 sec mounted on Induro CT214 tripod with Nikon MC-30 cable releaseIt is easy to make photography all about handheld daytime shots. After all, one is outside more during the day than at night and cameras are mostly conveniently held in hand. This is all the more reason to venture out at night, and all the more reason to buy a good tripod. Want to do something radical with your photography? Go out at night. Put your DSLR on your tripod and leave it there. These two actions will have dramatic effects on both how you make photographs and the photographs you produce.
Photography tip: shoot at night; shoot on a tripod
Things are calmer at night, at least in St. Petersburg. Making a photograph using a tripod is a calmer way of producing a shot than handholding the camera. Night photography requires very long shutter speeds. For the above image I kept the shutter open 20 seconds. You cannot just go around shooting willy nilly when just one shot takes 20 seconds. This is a good thing.
Working at night on a tripod requires a lot of setup and previsualization before pushing the shutter. I have not shot at night much in the past myself, but am really liking it and plan on doing it more, especially since earlier this year I bought a "no compromises" tripod that is simply a pleasure to use. This kind of tripod just plain makes photography more fun. Does it cost $600 for such a tripod? Yes, it does. Are there any cheaper "no compromises" tripods out there? No, I could not find one. Was it worth it? Absolutely.
Please link to your night photography images in the comments below.