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Night Shots

E

EnforcerGT

Bad Trader
Joined
Feb 9, 2002
Messages
1,501
Im looking to buy a digi cam for a hobby, and general use. To me, a camera is a camera but where a camera really shines, is at places with low light. If a camera can give stunning pictures with low light (night), its what im looking for. Like skyscraper,scenery,object shots. I have about a $200 budget, but I can get $250 at max.

Im asking for your help. I've been reading and Im still a bit confused.

Shutter speed?? I've seen 2 seconds, 15 seconds. Which??
Exposure?? Is the +/-2 the exposure? I seen most cameras can do 2 seconds. Am I wrong?
Aperture??
ISO??

I understand I'm asking for alot but I think this will be useful for not only me, but for others who've stopped by this thread.

Thx in advance.
 
I'm fairly new to all this as well but let me try to answer some of your questions.

1) When you are asking for low light, do you want shots taken in low light such as concerts/parties. Or are you thinking more along the lines of a picture takin with an open shutter. Here is what I mean:

(party/indoors) Not my photo
http://www.adventureteam.com/photogallery/2002_christmas_party/christmas party 013.jpg

(long exposure) Not my photo
http://www.pentessence.net/gallery/albums/Long-Exposure/mill4.sized.jpg

Basically, will these low light shots be takin of events going on? Or just still stuff?

2) The shutter speed can range anywhere from 1/8000 of a second (action shot), to 10 min long (long exposures). Basically you want a wide range to pick from. Such as my Nikon 5400 shoots anywhere between 1/4000sec - 10 min.

3) Exposure is fairly simple. You can overexpose http://www.paneristi.com/archives/london2003/overexposed.jpg or underexpose http://www.j3s.net/photolog/2003feb/2003feb05_underexposed.jpg

The +/- 2 is a setting you can set your camera at to counteract blowing the picture out or to brighten it up.

4) Aperture is a complicated thing that I am still learning myself. A low number, such as f2.8 can let it in more light and is said to be faster. As opposed to something at f8.

5) ISO is actually pretty simple. The lower the number the less noise is seen. The higher the number the more noise shows up. So why use high numbers? Because it is better for low light conditions like you enjoy. It lets more light enter into the picture to better expose it. It also can allow for higher shutter speeds, with the sacrifice of image quality.

With that I wish you the best of luck in making your selection.

Please someone correct me if I am wrong somewhere, still understanding myself. =]
 
Emberghost said:
2) The shutter speed can range anywhere from 1/8000 of a second (action shot), to 10 min long (long exposures). Basically you want a wide range to pick from. Such as my Nikon 5400 shoots anywhere between 1/4000sec - 10 min.
Click to expand...
A lot of higher-end cameras even have a "bulb" mode that lets you keep the shutter open as long as you want. I've always wondered exactly how long you could keep the CCD going and all that before the batteries ran out. It would be cool to be able to take an hour-long exposure, but somehow I doubt that any of the cameras I have access to could manage that. Though maybe if you ran it off of the AC adapter...

Anyway, EnforcerGT, if you're looking to do the landscape variety of low-light shot, just make sure that your camera can do at least ten or fifteen seconds. The aurora photos I took were mostly at 30 seconds. Most of these night shots I took are at five to fifteen seconds.

You probably will want something that gives you a full-manual mode. Focusing and aperture control are particularly important for these long exposures. That starry effect you get from light sources is determined by the aperture iris, and if you don't have control over the aperture, you won't be able to play with that sort of thing. Manual focus is important just because cameras aren't generally all that great at focusing in low light.
 
I've narrowed my search to a couple cameras.

The Canon SD110, and the S1 IS.

All three have the same shutters, but the S1 IS seems to have a better lens and zoom?

The S1 IS looks like a SLR and from what i've heard, it shoots like a SLR.

The SD110 would be nice because of its ultra compact size.

Anybody have any comments or opinions on how they are at low light shooting conditions??
 
EnforcerGT said:
I've narrowed my search to a couple cameras.

The Canon SD110, and the S1 IS.

All three have the same shutters, but the S1 IS seems to have a better lens and zoom?

The S1 IS looks like a SLR and from what i've heard, it shoots like a SLR.

The SD110 would be nice because of its ultra compact size.

Anybody have any comments or opinions on how they are at low light shooting conditions??
Click to expand...

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "shoots like an SLR." The S1 does not look like an SLR, it's much smaller for starters. The Pro 1 looks more like an SLR, but is also smaller.

You can check www.dpreview.com to see how the S1 IS performs at high ISOs (which have already been explained to you in this thread).
The S1 suffers at ISO 400, which is still on the low end for SLR cameras. http://www.dpreview.com/gallery/?gallery=canons1is_samples/
 
mdude85 said:
The S1 suffers at ISO 400, which is still on the low end for SLR cameras.
Click to expand...
I may be missing something here, but I think EnforcerGT is looking for low-lighting plus tripod, not just low lighting. Certainly less noise is preferable regardless of the intended use, but I suspect ISO400 noise is not too much of a factor if he's mainly interested in long exposures.
 
agentzero9 said:
With your budget and needs I'd strongly consider the Canon A80.
Click to expand...
QFT

As for long exposures and low light, your going to have to get either a tripod or a monopod.
Any P&S will have noisy looking pictures and not excel in the low-light area.
As for the S1, I can personally attest for its terrible low light abilities, along with some nasty barrel distortion, vigenetting and in low light, nasty chromatic abrasion (AKA purple fringing).
The A80 I had took resonable night pictures, but they weren't good enough for me, hence why I went with a 300D (but that is 500 dollars more than you want to spend).
Cliffnotes:
A80 gets my vote, S1 does not.
 
I ended up getting the Canon SD200 with 512mb SD. I heard its a great camera, very fast startup, and shooting. I sacrified just a little quality for its compact size, which is a big plus. I already have a tripod btw. The camera is coming in 2 days, so I'll post some pictures. I'll be looking toward all the positive/negative comments and opinions. :D

BTW, anybody else have any experience or opinions on the SD200?
 
I own the SD200 and love it. Comming from a Canon S30 I was downgrading in image quality just a bit. But that's not really a fair comparison to begin with, and the IQ on the SD200 is still above most non-Canon cameras.

And most of all the sacrifice was well worth it for this little speed demon.
 
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