Night photography with high ISO values

One of the advantages of digital photography is that you can use a different ISO setting for each shot without having to change rolls.

Until now I had never even touched the ISO setting but last week I decided to try my EOS 10D with a high ISO value just to see how it handled, so I took a few shots at night at Paço de Arcos beach (a regular evening strolling spot) and the results aren’t half bad.
Some of them can be seen here in the photolog.

[Or could be seen there in the photolog, as it no longer exists and I’ve lost the photographs in the mean time.]

Of course there is quite a bit of color noise, but that is to be expected and, in some cases, it ads to the picture.
Overall the quality is very interesting and I find the 10D handles itself very well in low light conditions. Better than in extremely bright ones. Funny that.

Now I must start thinking about a tripod for night photos. I’ve had my sights on a number of pictures I’d like to try one of these days, but all of them would need low ISO settings and high exposure times so a tripod is a must. The problem is that I just know I’m too lazy to drag a tripod with me on other, more casual occasions and buying a tripod just for a couple of pictures now and then is a bummer…