Nice improvement and good shots!
I had the same issue with composing as you do. Then I figured an easy trick for my night photography: jack up the ISO to 1600 or 3200 and shoot a frame with a 1-3 second exposure - whichever gets you some outlines for compositing. This way it only takes a few seconds to compose a shot, instead of waiting the 30 secs or so at ISO 100.
An added benefit is that you get a ballpark figure on the correct exposure: 1 second exposure at ISO 3200 is equal to 32 seconds at ISO 100
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Thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated!
Thanks for the tip feppe, hadn't thought of that, makes complete sense! I hadn't worked out the relationship between exposure time and iso either, should be easier to work out what exposure I need rather than it being a bit hit and miss as it is now.
Thanks again, I'm learning loads!
Mat.