Night/ Dusk Shots

[Ay Cee]

Hi Everybody,
Just got my G3 today and can see I'm going to have loads of fun with it :)

I've got a question regarding night shots. I'll have plenty more questions to annoy you with in the future ;)

I have no extras with my G3, just what it ships with, wait until my wife sees my X-Mas wish list!

Anyway, I took the 2 pics below. I've decreased the size obviously to save bandwidth for people. I did nothing with the camera bar rotate the dial to "night shot". As you can see the pics are out of focus, as I expected they would be with nothing done to the manual setting.

Can anybody help a newbie out and suggest what would be the best settings for taking these kind of pictures again? I understand that a tripod would greatly help but I'm more interested in what the camera can do to help me :)

http://www.irishbeats.com/images/nightchurch.jpg

&

http://www.irishbeats.com/images/nightlandscape.jpg

Greatly appreciated,
Allan.

[carloz]

You definitely need a tripod to prevent camera shake.
I prefer using the M dial which gives me greater control. But what I can suggest is check the settings your camera takes on the night dial shot .That way you when you switch over to the M dial you have a general setting to begin with. You then just jog around till you get the ideal snap. Enjoy

[Azalia]

Hello, pardon my ignorance but could someone tell me what an "M dial" is ?!? :)

[msvadi]

You pictures show blur from camera shake. You need a tripod to prevent it. If you buy a cheap tripod (like I did, wla mart, $18 ) you will discover that it's not steady enough, so you will need to use self timer or remote.

For night shots I usually start taking pictures in Av mode and let the camera select the shutter speed. I set the aperture according to the desired DOF. Then I switch to M and change the shutter speed from the values camera suggested to see if it improves the picture.

[mttmrphy]

azalia wrote:
Hello, pardon my ignorance but could someone tell me what an "M dial" is ?!? :)

Did you read the users guide? That should answer all of questions.

[sdommin]

As others have said, you need a tripod.

Also, set your focus to manual, at infinity. Use manual exposure (start at f4 and 1/2 sec., then experiment). Lastly, use the self-timer or the remote to make your exposure (so you won't shake the camera by touching it).