picked up a new camera today....

[13Bracer]

Hand held or on a tripod? Use the timer if you don't have a remote, you never want to touch the camera when taking a night shot.

Put the ISO down to 100 or 200, only use 800 if you are shooting hand held and don't have a choice.

A higher f/stop will give you a better depth of field and improve the colors/contrast.

White balance on Auto? Might want to play with the settings some if you don't want to do it in photoshop later.

yeah i used a tripod..
ok yeah my iso was set on 800..lol
and yep the white balance is on auto..
i will def get back out theretonight and mess with it some more..
thanks

[13Bracer]

this is really a really dumb question but what is f/stop?

[james]

this is really a really dumb question but what is f/stop?

on a lens there are numbers that sometimes start pretty low like 1.8 on the one i have in my hand right now. this is one of the factors that controls DOF. the smaller the number on the lens, the less DOF you will have. if you use a higher F/stop the aperture will be smaller and you will have a longer DOF.

[speedminded]

this is really a really dumb question but what is f/stop?

Focal length divided by the aperture diameter. In full manual mode everything is fully adjustable with each setting being as equal important as the other: shutter, f/stop, ISO, etc..these are all things that could be learned with a point & shoot before jumping into a DSLR

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number

The following images are the same shot with different f/stops, the first is f/5 and the 2nd is f/32, two completely different looking photos but the same shot with only a couple settings changed...

[speedminded]

yeah i used a tripod..
ok yeah my iso was set on 800..lol
and yep the white balance is on auto..
i will def get back out theretonight and mess with it some more..
thanks

Put the camera on timer, it's a pain in the ass because it takes 5 or 10 seconds for the shot but the outcome will be infinitely better.

On that same shot and it's not a windy night with the trees blowing around making them blurry i'd go with ISO 200, 1.5 to 2+ second shutter, f/6.3 or higher, and there's something i didn't mention before....do a manual lock on the focus. The camera will flip out if you have it on auto focus with the cars going by. Look through the view finder with it on auto focus, focus on your subject, then flip it over to manual focus so it stays there locked.