Times Square at night

Photographing Times Square at night can often be a bit tricky to achieve full detail in the signs, sky, and city. For one thing, timing is important. The lights in the square are much brighter than you might imagine so you need to start photographing earlier than you would for a normal city sunset photo.  Other wise the lit signs just go white with no detail, or the sky just goes completely black. Maintaining a balance between the two is the goal. To make the photo below I combined two exposures of the same scene. This enabled me to paint in the most colorful signs and eliminate those that came out pure white from over-exposure.

This photo and the one below were taken with a Nikon D800 and a Sigma 12-24mm zoom lens.  An aperture of f/22 ensured an extended depth of field.  The photograph was taken right at sunset to pick up detail in the sky.