You might have read my article on buying a good digital camera and here are two tips for taking photographs at nights, if at all you forget your tripod.

How to check whether you will able to take pictures without shake??
There is something called as shutter speed in camera which decides the of time for shutter to allow light to enter. In low light condition the shutter speed go very low to allow maximum amount of light to enter. This makes camera highly sensitive and small shake will give highly blurred images.

Shutter speed is displayed in the camera as 1/60 or 1/120 or 1/30 or 1/15 …etc etc … (1/60 means 1/60th of a second ). You can see it on your camera LCD. If the shutter speed go below 1/60 i.e ( 1/45 or 1/30 etc) you really need to try hard to prevent camera shake.

Some cameras show shutter speed directly on your camera LCD but some need the picture button to be pressed half ( So that the camera checks the focus to decide the speed ). Once you find out that shutter speed is going less than 1/60, try these :-

1. Use the 2sec Timer

Most of us might have always wondered what the use of a 2 sec timer. Most of the people might not have used it till now . Well !! the main use of this 2 sec timer comes when you take the snaps in low light where camera shake is possible while taking the pressing the picture button. Hence set the camera for 2 sec timer, press the picture button and hold the camera still for 2 secs till the picture is taken . Try to rest your hands on some stable surface to prevent further shake.

2. Try to keep the camera at still surface

If you can find any still surface for example park bench, wide railings etc try to keep it there , and use the timer to take the photograph.

3. Switch to ISO400 or ISO200 and try Using the Continuous picture mode

Don’t switch to more than ISO 400 as photos will be very very grainy and will be of no use .Continuous mode allow camera to take pictures till the picture button is pressed. You can take 15-20 pictures like this and can finally rely that one picture might have come proper. Use this when top two fails as this method will fill your memory card very fast.
Read more about using continuous mode for taking photograph at night.