Low light photo contest winners

Greg Marchand captured this incredible photo of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse in Pescadero, CA with a 14mm-24mm lens at 14mm. The unusual pattern was a result of a special lighting display for the lighthouse's anniversary celebration.

Camera: Nikon D3S

Exposure time: 15 seconds

Aperture: f/2.8

ISO: 320

"I took this photo at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. The light in one of the gazebos was attracting all these winged termites. The toads must have noticed the commotion as well and were right there, feasting on the termites. I took out the camera and monopod, bumped up the ISO to 800, and set it to aperture priority. For this shot I used my 55-300 mm and stopped it down to f/8 to get a sharper image. I also used spot metering. I did a few adjustments in Lightroom such as cropping, noise reduction, and sharpening."

[Click here to see a large version of this image]

Camera: Pentax K-x

Exposure time: 1/80

Aperture: f/8

ISO: 800

"This is a picture of the Milky Way galaxy that I took at the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy Visitor Information Station (aka the Mauna Kea Summit visitor center) on the big island of Hawaii. I've been fascinated with astronomy since I was a little kid. Before digital cameras with high ISO performance it would have been practically be impossible for amateurs to capture a photo like this."

Camera: Canon 5D Mark II

Exposure time: 30 seconds

Aperture: f/2.8

ISO: 6400

Lens: Tokina ATX-116 at 14mm camera is a Canon 5D MK2

Jamie Walker took this image with a point-and-shoot camera. "This photo was taken at near zero degrees on snowy night in Stockholm. I hand-held the camera while shivering and braced against a bus stop sign."

[Click here to see a large version of this image]

Camera: Canon PowerShot A620

Exposure time: 0.3

Aperture: f/2.8

"As I was walking home from work one night I noticed a lizard sleeping on the leaf of this plant. I quickly ran home to get my photography equipment and came back to the spot where the lizard was."

[Click here to see a large version of this image]

Camera: Rebel T2i

Exposure time: 2 seconds

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 400

"This photo was taken outside of the house we were staying on a Montana vacation (Deer Park, Emigrant, Montana). It was almost completely dark, but I knew there were a number of deer sleeping in the yard. A 30 second exposure revealed 7 deer, and with a few quiet adjustments I was able to nicely frame them with the hill that overlooked the valley where we were staying."

[Click here to see a large version of this image]

Camera: Nikon D700

Exposure time: 30 seconds

Aperture: f/2.8

ISO: 1600

"This is a picture of Manhattan taken fro the DUMBO section of Brooklyn between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. It is a panorama composite of 4 pictures stitched together in Photoshop. I used a tripod and the ISO was 1600. I used a Canon50D camera with a Tamron 18-270 lens at 18mm and bracketed the shot +/- 1EV to get the best exposure."

[Click here to see a large version of this image]

Camera: Canon 50D

ISO: 1600

Brett Reed shot this image at Speed Week 2008 at the Bonneville Salt Flats. He used a Rollie 16mm fisheye lens adapted to work with his Canon EOS 5D.

[Click here to see a large version of this image]

Camera: Canon EOS 5D

Exposure time: 30 seconds

ISO: 400

"The picture was captured by me when I went for a tour for the state of Rajasthan, which is situated in the deserted part of India. I went out to test my first DSLR camera, the Nikon D90, at night."

Camera: Nikon D90

Exposure time: 1/2 second

Aperture: f/4.5

ISO: 800

Dennis Lund, Delta Junction, Alaska took this surreal photo of the Northern Lights. "Green is common, but the purple on the right edge is very rare. This was taken on a Tripod. The light is from a nearby building, and is refracting on the lens glass. The sky and lighting/rings look like another-world."

Camera: Nikon D200

Exposure time: 30 seconds

Aperture: f/3.5

"I took this picture about thirty miles south of Carbondale, CO. I had just seen a video on how to manipulate the exposure to get the smokey effect of water. I had also just seen a video about "painting with light". To try it out I used a Canon T1i with the kit lens. I set it on a tripod and I used a remote to trigger the camera. For lighting I had a million candle power spotlight purchased at Wal-Mart. After I triggered the camera with the remote, I slowly started painting up and down with the spotlight. It took many tries because, while doing it, you really can't see anything except the spot of light."

Camera: Canon T1i

Exposure time: 30 seconds

Aperture: f/5.6