gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Spot meter on the light and experiment until you get the look that you want. Night shots of lights usually benefit from a bit of under exposure. Also take a look at your histogram to make sure you don’t have a big spike up against the right side showing that the highlights are blown out and thus the light is way overexposed.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Is the first image similar to what you are getting, and the second what you are trying for?

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DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

If you're concentrating on ornate street lights, it might be better to take the shots during the day. The outside structure of the street light (the ornate part) will be evenly lit by daylight. At night, a single bright source inside the street light will have the fancy stuff in shadow.

If you need to show the light, you might want to experiment with the shots at twilight, when there is a balance of inside and outside illumination,.

Carlosu

Just a thought. I was in Paris, taking photos on a night cruise of the Seine and as I took the photos,I reviewed them and they were fuzzy. My settings were correct, in my opinion. The photos should have been fine. It finally dawned on me that my lens was foggy. I wiped it clean, and, as they sayin Paris, voila!

Peanut_the_cat Loc: Bradenton, Florida

This is the way to do it. The problem you face is a brightness range beyond the capability of the camera. In other words, if the background is correctly exposed, then the lights will be as you say "white blobs". If the lights are correctly exposed the background will be too dark, or even black. Assuming you were using a tripod (I hope so) you need to take 2 exposures, one correct for the background and one correct for the lights. The correct exposure for the lights may make the background completely black, but that's OK. Next, you need software that uses layers as you need to mask in the correct exposure for the lights with the correct exposure for the background. Photoshop is the obvious choice but I believe there are others, like On1. There may be other ways to achieve what you want but they will not achieve perfect results like the method I describe above. I would suggest you look at On1 if you do not have Photoshop. It is cheaper than Photoshop and way easier to learn. They may even offer a free trial.

trapper1 Loc: Southside Virginia

Here (I hope) are a couple of the photos I took at night of the lamps on a local bridge. They were handheld but my hand was resting on the sill of the car window so it was a steady rest. The pictures show how much I need to learn how to do acceptable pictures of this nature.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Please attach the files .....

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

The range of brightness from street light to surrounding elements is very great and difficult for a camera to get. Careful exposure setting is called for. From the second shot I can see you used a shutter speed long enough to be seriously affected by camera movement. You need a faster shutter speed or use of a tripod. You also need a lesser exposure to not "blow out" the lamps and hope the less bright subjects don't fall into shadows.

There is a technique called high definition photography for this problem which is complicated.

I suspect you wold benefit from reading up on the exposure triangle, the 3 settings that affect exposure (ISO, shutter speed, aperture) and the other affects of adjusting each.

ButchS Loc: Spokane, WA

It's probably just basic lens flare. A bright light source aimed straight in the lens.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

Dang - I meant High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography.

tgreenhaw

For starters the images I see here are 400X600 pixels - not much detail to work with. Uploading the the original file will help the rest of us Hogs give you better feedback.

The first picture is sharper (see the top of the wire tower) and the second is blurred by what is likely camera shake. If it was bad focus, some part of the image would likely be sharper but the whole frame is blurred. Remember the shutter speed rule of thumb - at least the same speed as the 1 divided by the focal length for handheld. You can sometimes get away with cheating the rules more if you are using a wide angle lens. Put the camera on a tripod when shooting stationary things at night. Bracing the camera helps but is unreliable; if you have no choice, take a bunch of shots hoping one will be stable.

You are smarter and more artistic than your camera. Decide for yourself what the important part of the scene is to be featured prominently and set the best exposure for that part of the scene.

Your camera's automatic exposure is making a compromise between getting shadow detail in the night time scene and highlights with the lights. The lights are getting completely blown out. Usually you will want good detail in the lights, so manually set your exposure for the lights and let the rest of the scene go darker.

Be sure to bracket your shots. If you're trying to get the whole scene properly exposed, try using an HDR capability if your camera supports that. You can manually do HDR on a computer, but it is an advanced procedure.

If you can shoot RAW format - do so. I always shoot RAW+JPG and I find that I almost always have to post process the RAW files for night shots.

You might need a better camera. The sharper picture implies a wide depth of field meaning the lens is probably f3.5 or slower, a small sensor, and likely a combination of both set to a wide angle.

tgreenhaw

At nighttime??? What shutter speed?

aellman Loc: Boston MA

Attach one of the photos and check the box for "store original." You'll get plenty of replies.

Eric2018 Loc: Los Angeles, CA, USA

Difficult to tell without camera and lens information. Your sample shots look like the problem is camera movement, resulting in blur. Your camera might also have decided to use the widest aperture due to the low light. To take night shots, a tripod is very important, with a remote shutter release. You also need a fairly high quality lens that you can stop down to around f/8 or f/11 for optimal results. Accurate metering is difficult. Use a low ISO. Take multiple exposures, doubling the exposure time for each until you hit on one that is to your liking, exposure-wise. If they are still blurry, your lens may not be up to the task, or your lens may be dirty or it may have a film on it (cigarette smoke residue or the like) that scatters the light before it gets to your sensor.

Hamltnblue Loc: Springfield PA

The good news is nothing is in focus and you handheld.
A tripod, correct settings and delayed shutter will make a major improvement.
Posting a pic probably isn't necessary as it's too far off.
Set the camera to ISO 100-200, Aperture priority, F11-14, matrix metering, Auto color, 10 second delay on the shutter or use wired release. Auto Focus about 100 feet in front of you or a railing on the bridge.
After the shot, review by hitting the play button. If you want the pic a little lighter or darker, use the exposure compensation button to adjust up or down a stop.

You don't have to wait for night to practice. This can be done any time of day as being on Aperture priority will result in the camera adjusting the shutter speed to properly expose the image.
Good Luck