I’ve been an Olympus shooter since pre-digital days and have stuck with their dSLRs since the Olympus E-10. And in truth, overall I’ve been happy with my Olympus cameras. That remains true of my current Olympus E-3, their “flagship” dSLR.

If I’m being honest, my main complaint with my current gear of choice is the high ISO performance. Shooting in low-light without a flash using the E-3 is tough. The 4/3 sensor system just isn’t optimum for this scenario and you wind up fighting noise in the resulting images. I can get photos I’m happy with but it requires a great deal of time consuming post-processing. Time I’d rather use shooting photos instead of editing them!

Olympus does have newer, better sensors in several of their new mid-level dSLRs and in the new micro-4/3rd line of cameras, but unfortunately Olympus has a bad habit of getting distracted by the consumer market and ignoring working professionals that use their camera gear. There are features in the flagship, like weather sealing, that are absolutely critical to me as a photojournalist working in Seattle!

While we’ve seen innovation from Olympus in their lower end models, we’ve gone years without a hint of a new professional model that incorporates all of those innovations in a single body with features like weather-sealing that I need. And it’s getting tough seeing the strides that Nikon and Canon are making and not start to feel that maybe the grass is a bit greener elsewhere.

The new rumor is that an E-3 replacement will be announced before the end of this year. I’m trying to tell myself that the smart thing to do is give the Olympus marketing arm the benefit of the doubt and wait and see what they deliver. The problem is we’ve heard this rumor for the last two years and nothing much has come of it that is of use to me.

In the interim, I ditched my last Olympus point-and-shoot walking around camera and replaced it with a Canon S90. So far the little camera has blown me away. There are times I’d rather shoot with it than my big camera and that’s got me thinking. If this little pocket-sized device is so fantastic, how good would one of the Canon professional dSLR systems be?

So do I wait patiently (OK, not so patiently) to see what, if anything, Olympus produces? Or do I start planning an exodus to a new Canon camera system? A Canon EOS 7D? A Canon EOS 5D Mk II? Decisions, decisions!

For me, this is a very enjoyable form of photography. There’s something magical about a skyline at night. It’s also a really good way to become familiar with light and how you can control your camera to capture it.

First thing, you’re going to need a camera that you can control manually. I shoot exclusively digital these days but film would work just as well. You’re also going to need a tripod.

I recommend you get to the location you plan to shoot from before sunset. It’s much easier to set up when you still have plenty of light. You’ll also have an opportunity to get great shots of your chosen subject during the golden hour as the sun sets.

As far as initial camera settings go, I set it to full manual. Since you’re going to be setup on a tripod and your subject generally doesn’t move you can manually focus it once and then just check focus from time to time. I set the camera ISO to 100 which is best on my Olympus E-3. Some cameras do better with an ISO of 200, so you’ll want to check this on your own camera.

My Olympus Zuiko lenses are generally sharpest with an aperture of 5.6 to 8 so I select something within that range. I’ll then adjust the shutter speed to get my desired exposure. You may need to experiment with the white balance setting to get something that you like. My E-3 does a good job on the auto setting so I generally leave it alone. I shoot RAW anyway, so I can adjust that in post-processing if desired.

After that point, you’ll control things using just the shutter speed. Your camera should have a built in meter that will help you select an initial setting, but you’ll want to experiment from that point. I’ll often select a slightly slower shutter speed to overexpose just a bit to get more glow from the city lights. The main thing here is to try different settings to see how they affect the final image. It’s a matter of taste, so play with it and have fun!

One final tip. To reduce the opportunity for blur, I recommend you use a wired or wireless off-camera shutter release. This eliminates any shake introduced from you pushing the shutter release. If you don’t have one, just use your cameras built-in self-timer if it has one. Your camera may also have an additional setting to lock the mirror up before opening the shutter to further reduce shake. To be honest though, I rarely remember to set this.

And that’s really all there is to it. I hope you enjoy trying this for yourself!