Anybody got settings for Olympus or Canon digital SLR cameras for the best shots?
Camera exposures will be shorter than you think. Try 1/60 sec at 200-300mm @ ISO 400
If you have a digital, then take quite a few at differnet exposures, doing what photographers call "bracketing" since the cost of film is no longer an issue. Use a tripod and set your camera on manual. Set the ISO to 16000. Open your aperture as wide as it gets (probably 3.5 if it's the stock 18-55m Canon lens) and take shots from 2 to 30 seconds (think you'll like the 5 second exposure). The longer it goes the more washed out the scene will be. Make sure there are no street lights in the view. Use the zoom to its full extent if there is a lot of lighting clutter around.
For composition try and get a tree or hillside silhouetted in the background using a more wide angle view on the zoom. Buildings are usually not attractive in these kinds of scenes unless it's something like attractive like a cathedral or a capitol dome, or a familiar high rise.
If we don't have fog here like last night, I'm going to give it a try too.
Start with F11 1/250 and work down from there.
Don’t assume the pic isn’t any good until you get it on your computer, digital so just snap away, try all the bracketing you want...
wide open, 15 seconds, tripod