Blue Hour or Twilight Photography

Twilight hour is that time after dusk when building and street lights are
visible and the color of the sky has turned cobalt-blue.
(Taken on Oct. 24, 2011 from our 7th floor building.)

Nowadays, night photography has become popular and very interesting as the design of DSLR sensors has become sophisticated. Most of these newer models can take take impressive night shots even without the aid of a tripod. Sensitivity to light has been enhanced with higher ISO settings.

Normally, you use a small aperture and a longer exposure to obtain the best result. I've limited my ISO to 200 and used manual focus only.

For the above photo, I used the following settings - ISO 200, f/20, 6-sec., lens 18~200mm @ 32mm and I used tripod.

This one was taken facing East. The one above was facing South.

These are the settings for this photo - ISO 200, f/5, 1/5 sec., lens 18~200mm @ 65mm, hand-held, manual focus.