Help - Nightshot with G2

[bigpow]

Very dissapointed with the G2.

Tried to take some firework pictures when all I got was blurry/noisy pictures.
A friend with Sony F717 was there too, his shots were 90% good.

I guess I'm too stupid to use this G2.

Any help would be appreciated.

Settings? Recommendation?



Was using P with ISO 400 (a lot of digital noise!!!), and tripod & everything. Same setup with the Sony. In fact we took turn taking the pictures because we wanted to cover every explotion.

[rrosener]

Noise is more noticeable in nightshots in general, but shouldn't be that bad. Make sure your JPEG compression is set to SUPERFINE.
use ISO 200 or even 100. Set the camera's focus to infinity and lock it there. Use apeture priority mode instead of "P"
I think that nightshots, especially of fireworks, is where traditional 35mm slr cameras still surpass digital....

[bigpow]

I had it set to
RAW
ISO=400
MF=~

Why Sony F717 can make beautiful clear nightshots??

Why??

[buggy]

I had that problem too. I take pictures of drag races and the night shots as the cars were launching were horrible. I ordered "A Short Course in Canon PowerShot G2 Photography" and it gives you really great information on how to take shots at night. I haven't been able to test it out yet, so I can't give you any links unfortunately. The book is in laymans terms, too! Easy to read. If you can get the cd only for a cheaper price, I'd do that, the book is on the cd and you can print it. The book is made cheaply, but it's totally useful and totally specific to the camera. I'm glad I got it.

Hope this helps.

(BTW, day motion shots in straight auto come out like a champ! I love my camera!)

[datawatch99]

It has to do with the automatic settings. When you press the shutter the camera tries to compensate for low light by opening up the shutter longer than in bright light. Leaving the shutter open longer results in blurry/streaked images.

Put the camera in manual mode and adjust everything yourself, f-stop, shutter speed, iso, focus, etc. You will also notice that you can take pictures a lot faster this way, as the camera is not pausing when you press the shutter release button to figure out those settings.

For more detailed info on what those settings should be for night time shooting, DP Review has some good how-to articles that apply to any camera.

[jocareed]

I obtained some nice clear fireworks photos. Here's what I did:

1) Set the camera so that "continuous" would be enabled. You reach that from the menu button.

2) Then I went to manual mode and set the exposure time at about 3-4 seconds. Then I set the "remote" button"...the one on top for "continuous mode" instead of remote.

3) When the fireworks started I had my camera on a tripod. I just held down the button to take pictures and the camera constantly took a picture every 3 seconds...as long as I held the button down. I ended up taking 468 pictures. Many of which I liked. I have a 1 Gigabyte IBM hard drive in my camera.

4) After the fireworks, I went home, downloaded the pictures to my computer. Looked at them with iPhoto, made a Quicktime movie showing a frame every .5 seconds. It was like watching the fireworks show all over again.

Hope this helps,

Joe

[Sherman]

Hi Folks!

Nightshots is possible with G2. I have a nice one, I think :-) at http://www.visuelweb.dk/galleri.htm - with the the exip data.

Happy shooting.....

Regards Bo

[Jim Cim]

Once off auto settings I have really enjoyed using my G2 for time exposures at night. Here are a few examples that I thought came out better than I ever expected:

http://jimcim.50megs.com/cgi-bin/i/art/roadflare.jpg

http://jimcim.50megs.com/cgi-bin/i/art/backyard004.jpg

These were both done with the camera set at 50 iso and then the shutter adjusted to stay open long enough to let in enough light. In the case of the car lights it was about 5 seconds.

[poind]

The suddenly varying light and indefinite focus of fireworks can be quite tricky. I messed around a lot with them one night shortly after getting my G2.

I found 400 ISO wasn't worth it, 200 could be okay, but I actually far preferred photos at 100 or 50 even if the shutter had to stay open longer.

If you were on your P setting, as you said, you weren't able to control shutter speed and aperture manually.

Aperture does need to be set to infinite, and you can thereafter mess with manually adjusting exposure times depending on your exact ISO, desires, and so on. You don't want the camera trying to figure things out automatically.

Tripod/stability will be necessary, of course.

You also might want to use your infrared control to minimize camera shake, and consider disabling the 2-10 second auto-review so the camera can recover faster (it can already take about as much time to get ready again as the shutter stays open).

Anyway, it can be good to "play in traffic" (from a distance) and so on to get prepped before trying fireworks themselves.

Given that your best photos will happen if the shutter's already open slightly before something even explodes, they can be one of the toughest things to shoot well.

[bigpow]

I think I got it, sort of
www.pbase.com/bigpow