Night Photography using Compact Camera

[lazarus_lauw]

Hello,

When I took night photograph with my digital compact camera, I can never be sure to get a good picture, either outdoor or in big room with low lighting.

My camera is Fuji FinePix 2800Z and recently I tried with my friend's Panasonic 4Mega Pixel with Leica lens, result not yet satisfactorily...

I still prefer not to use big SLR camera with bulky and heavy flash, so what compact digital camera that can best give the optimum result?

Can any body give me suggestion? The need for compact camera is for travelling where we need to have a nice photo shot with city background lighting, or inside the concert...

I appreciate and welcome any input.

Regards,
Lazarus

 

[coke21]

Oops totally misread the thread.

You can try using a tripod and try the longer exposure times. For low light conditions, you can change the ISO setting to a higher one, ISO 800, ISO 1600 etc, depending on your camera. Please note that at higher ISOs the pictures tend to be more noisy. This however is camera dependent.

 

[lavenderlilz]

How about using exposure compensation?

 

[lazarus_lauw]

Hi Coke,

What you said is true. Only foreground looks OK but the background is almost totally dark. The reason we need to take the picture there is many times because of nice background...

I have to check my digital camera if it can be set to higher ISO sensitivity like when using film with higher ASA, hence can shorten shutter speed, etc... but do you know which compact camera (digital) that has the highest ISO sensitivity?

To Lavenderlilz, when I play around with the exposure compensation, the foreground can be overexposured...

So what is the best companion digital compact camera for travelling? I am looking for that now. Thanks for your replies guys.

God bless you,
Lazarus

 

[coke21]

Hi Coke,

What you said is true. Only foreground looks OK but the background is almost totally dark. The reason we need to take the picture there is many times because of nice background...

I have to check my digital camera if it can be set to higher ISO sensitivity like when using film with higher ASA, hence can shorten shutter speed, etc... but do you know which compact camera (digital) that has the highest ISO sensitivity?


God bless you,
Lazarus

Try using a tripod. But the longer shutter speeds would mean that your forground (people) might move and you get blurred people and the back ground will be okay. Max should be like 1sec i think. And tell your pple not to move until told to do so...

Not too sure abt the highest ISO setting that the market has presently. But liek I said, then to have plenty of noise at the higher ISOs. Even DSLRs tend to have that problem.


Another solution is to make sure your compact digital has large aperatures...

 

[Poon]

What you said is true. Only foreground looks OK but the background is almost totally dark.

Turn off the flash (or to slow sync if your camera has that func), and use a tripod.

 

[lavenderlilz]

To Lavenderlilz, when I play around with the exposure compensation, the foreground can be overexposured...

So what is the best companion digital compact camera for travelling? I am looking for that now. Thanks for your replies guys.

God bless you,
Lazarus

Hi Lazarus

I have used exposure compensation without flash - but have only done so in either low light situations outdoors (not dark like nite) or indoors at home when i am shooting my cats & wun want the flash to "blind" them or because I don't want a washout effect from the flash & it has worked fine for me.

I dunno if there is such thing as a "best" companion digital compact camera for travelling. I have used my canon s45 for 3 weeks of travelling in Victoria, Australia & I was very happy with it. As for nite scenes, didn't really take any as we were driving around most of the time. One way would be to use the "self-timer" which has either a 2sec or 10sec alternative. Anyway my attitude was if I dun like what I take, I can always buy a postcard

 

[SuRfTeC]

Tripod and slower shutter speed is the answer to your question..
but like what coke21 has mentioned... subject in the foreground must be stationary too... if not there might be a blurry effect for the people in the foreground...

one compact digital camera to reccomend that can take pretty good night shots is Olympus C5050... it has an aperture of 1.8 at full wide.... :thumbsup:

cheers

 

[D2Hpeter]

Hello,

When I took night photograph with my digital compact camera, I can never be sure to get a good picture, either outdoor or in big room with low lighting.

My camera is Fuji FinePix 2800Z and recently I tried with my friend's Panasonic 4Mega Pixel with Leica lens, result not yet satisfactorily...

I still prefer not to use big SLR camera with bulky and heavy flash, so what compact digital camera that can best give the optimum result?

Can any body give me suggestion? The need for compact camera is for travelling where we need to have a nice photo shot with city background lighting, or inside the concert...

I appreciate and welcome any input.

Regards,
Lazarus

compact p&s digital usually has got larger aperture already.
What i usually did with mine is to choose the night portrait option.
This give a slower shutter speed and a flash. A higher iso is also automatically selected. But for fast action, there may be blurs.