Taking pics in low light conditions


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tmc17479

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Would having a high ISO and a larger aperture(small f-stop) give better results for taking pictures in low light? Just wondering as I can't try it out on my cam.
 

tmc17479 said:
Would having a high ISO and a larger aperture(small f-stop) give better results for taking pictures in low light? Just wondering as I can't try it out on my cam.

A tripod And ISO 100 and small aperture will give you the best result,...If your subject don't move :p
 

if trying to capture subjects that is moving andunder low light conditions... i think using higher ISO and bigger aperture will help!

If still cannot, then maybe can try to use flash to compensate for the low light condition. :cool:

cheers
 

Has anyone tried taking pictures at those awards ceremony? Recently went to one and was sitting near the front so brought my S50 to try to capture snapshots of the stars. A larger aperture will capture the colours but also will make a blurred picture as the lighting was poor and my already-not-so-strong flash could not cover enough ground and plus the subjects kept moving. In the end I gave up on the lighting and switched to faster shutter speed. The subjects were focused but lighting was horrible, like in a dark room when it was actually pink/orange on stage.

Any tips/suggestions? A tripod will help much but hard to set it up when i'm sitting down. Also there were many photographers sitting down on the floor in front of the stage but they didnt' use their tripods as well. Wonder what did they do to capture the stars in poor lighting conditions...can anyone help? thanks :) !

Cheers,
Nightstar
 

The simplest solution is to up the ISO to around 400 or 800 (depending on lighting condition).
 

Hi Nightstar,

If you can afford to buy a higher guide number flash(example:40 & above), might give the power you want. Providing using higher ISO film(example:400) to freeze certain movement. Remember when human move(not so fast), 1/60 sec should get a decent picture.
Anyway, this are just to my knowledge only. Anything wrong, don't blame me,OK? Enjoy shooting... ;)
 

Nightstar, maybe you would like to post a few shots so we can see what's wrong with the pictures? Then we can suggest a solution.....
 

Nightstar, that's why you're called Night-Star, aren't you? :D

frankly, it really depends. for smaller digi compacts, if you up the ISO, the noise will increase practically exponentially. of course that's the "film sensitivity" or thereabouts in relation to film - but another problem you have is the aperture. i'm not sure if the s50 allows you to manually control the aperture, but since the DOF for smaller lenses is much deeper, you can definitely open your aperture wide open without worrying much. and also, important to remove motion blur, you'd need to use a fairly "fast" shutter speed, like 1/50s or even faster... in the direction of 1/60, 1/100 or even more - but the faster you go, the less ambient light will go into the camera. that will create more of the "deer in the dark" syndrome you can see for some many beginning photographers' works. you'd need to half-shutter and lock the focus before you shoot. try out your techniques first, to make sure you can do it when you HAVE to. :)
 

my opinion would be in the case of S50
high iso,AP mode at f2.8,set the white balance,lock the focus,support the cam on a seat in front(if have) and shoot.
flash?should be no need.

correct me as sure to have wrong somewhere since i so newbie....
 

Hi all,

Thanks for your tips and helpful suggestions. Unfortunately I don't have a chance to go to an award ceremony in the near future (noted pun on night-star ;) ) but I will practice what have been shared.

Actually I would like to share what I took that nite for more comments but not sure how too...my pictures are rather big about 1 - 2mb per picture. I searched CS forums but getting no where. Any idea?

I tried opening up my aperture in the Av mode but discovered that it won't let me go to f2.8 ...the max was about f4 something. Also, does pressing the shutter halfway = locking the focus?

Sorry for my newbie questions :sweat: . Though the pictures didn't turn out satisfactorily, I was glad I brought my camera along to fumble further along the path of digital photography.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Nightstar
 

you could resize your pics using an image editor (but don't overwrite the original files if you intend to keep them) and post them one some other sites like www.pbase.com .
 

SuRfTeC said:
if trying to capture subjects that is moving andunder low light conditions... i think using higher ISO and bigger aperture will help!

If still cannot, then maybe can try to use flash to compensate for the low light condition. :cool:

cheers

not if you are shooting landscapes... always bear in mind the power of the flash denoted by the guide number.
 

i think for yr cam..f2.8 only available for wide..
n i guess u r at full tele..aperature values drops when u zoom in :)

Nightstar said:
Hi all,

Thanks for your tips and helpful suggestions. Unfortunately I don't have a chance to go to an award ceremony in the near future (noted pun on night-star ;) ) but I will practice what have been shared.

Actually I would like to share what I took that nite for more comments but not sure how too...my pictures are rather big about 1 - 2mb per picture. I searched CS forums but getting no where. Any idea?

I tried opening up my aperture in the Av mode but discovered that it won't let me go to f2.8 ...the max was about f4 something. Also, does pressing the shutter halfway = locking the focus?

Sorry for my newbie questions :sweat: . Though the pictures didn't turn out satisfactorily, I was glad I brought my camera along to fumble further along the path of digital photography.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Nightstar
 

showtime said:
not if you are shooting landscapes... always bear in mind the power of the flash denoted by the guide number.


thanks for correcting me...!

yup... will bear that in mind now... :bsmilie:
 

Nightstar said:
I tried opening up my aperture in the Av mode but discovered that it won't let me go to f2.8 ...the max was about f4 something. Also, does pressing the shutter halfway = locking the focus?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Nightstar

like what sunnyday has posted... this usually is the case for normal prosumer DC...or maybe most DC. ;)

cheers
 

Thanks sunny and surftec...was really scratching my head over why I can't drop it to f2.8 :confused:

quite busy with work so will update with pictures when free-er...but really appreciate the tips/suggestions :)

cheers,
nightstar
 

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