Question:

I was having a horrible time trying to focus on the lighting-or anything else in the distance. How did you manage to get it in focus? How do you manage to focus on distant objects in the dark?

Answer:

1st method:
To focus in the dark (just focusing, not talking about aperture or shutter speed here) - if we are talking about pitch black, then the only way is the hold down the shutter button half way down - with canon EOS - it will go “zoom” and another “zoom” (the noise of the focusing motor that is)….once that’s finish - it is set to infinity focus. You now can switch it to manual focus….and just shoot away. This method is o rite, butter than not getting the photo at all. The downside of this is that sometime you might get a slightly blurry photo. that’s just the way it is.

2nd method:
What i usually do is that i focus on an light source or object near the distance that you will be focusing - a star, a light post, windows, sky with clouds, moon, etc. or ever a flashlight shine onto the subject. This involve moving your camera so that to a focus point is on that light source, after it had focus, switch to manual more your camera back into previous composition and fire away.
As long as the foreground is focus your image will be o rite. Foreground is more important than background.

Hope this helps.