Hello!
I have read the forum with interest and am very new to the world of digital photography. I recently attended a night time parade here in Norway and attempted to use my Nikon Coolpix S200 (7.1m megapixels) to take some pictures of the lights, fireworks and parade. No matter what setting I used and how ever much I tried automatic and manual settings I just could not get a very good picture. There is a castle on the hill which is lit up of an evening and every picture I took of that came out fuzzy despite using the highest setting. Also they took an age to save on some settings.
I have resigned myself to the fact that I am probably asking my little camera to just do too much and that I probably need to get a new, more expensive, camera if I wish to take better night pictures.
I'm really getting into this for the first time so I do not want to spend too much money on a camera but I do not want to spend too little and have it be a false economy by buying cheap and it being useless. Can anyone recommend a good quality but easy to use starter camera that I can try out as my first venture into the world of night time photography?
I have read the forum with interest and am very new to the world of digital photography. I recently attended a night time parade here in Norway and attempted to use my Nikon Coolpix S200 (7.1m megapixels) to take some pictures of the lights, fireworks and parade. No matter what setting I used and how ever much I tried automatic and manual settings I just could not get a very good picture. There is a castle on the hill which is lit up of an evening and every picture I took of that came out fuzzy despite using the highest setting. Also they took an age to save on some settings.
I have resigned myself to the fact that I am probably asking my little camera to just do too much and that I probably need to get a new, more expensive, camera if I wish to take better night pictures.
I'm really getting into this for the first time so I do not want to spend too much money on a camera but I do not want to spend too little and have it be a false economy by buying cheap and it being useless. Can anyone recommend a good quality but easy to use starter camera that I can try out as my first venture into the world of night time photography?
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Re: Extremely green newbie question!
Wed, September 5, 2007 - 4:04 PMHi Michael,
Try using a tripod. Even a top of the line Digital SLR will require slower shutter speeds at night. You'll generally want to use a tripod for anything requiring a shutter speed slower than about 1/60. Higher end cameras will have image stabilization but even that will only help so far.
Try using manual focus. Low light levels often confuse the auto-focus mechanism and the camera even try to re-focus during the exposure.
It's normal to take some additional time for a camera to save an image to memory stick during longer exposures.
--Kenn
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Re: Extremely green newbie question!
Wed, September 5, 2007 - 5:04 PMA few suggestions - increase the ISO to max, set the exposure to 1/60s and open the apperture as wide as possible, use a tripod, hold the camera steady. I've done handheld pictures with exposures as little as 1/10s but then you have to hold your breath and hold the camera real steady. If you are trying to take pictures of things that are moving though these suggestions will not work. - even at 1/60 moving people may look blury. The night pictures on your profile are beautiful!
