IXUS400 night outdoor landscape without flash

[grimmydesk]

Hi,

I would like to take picutres at night of city skylines without flash with my ixus 400
Seems like the shutter time is automaticaly longer when disabling flash.
Meaining my pictures result being blury since eventhough I try to remain stable.
Not easy to remain stable from a boat for example.

What can I do to reduce shutter time or to avoid this kind of problem
Up to now I missed all my night pics.

Thank you for your advice.

[Saudidave]

You need to shoot in "long shutter mode" which gives you a choice of exposure time. You also need a tripod or other means of holding the camera completeely still. I suggest you read the manual!

[Bodryn]

I agree; inexperienced photographers might not know just how much difference there is in illumination between night shots and daytime shots. You definitely need a tripod; then, to avoid any vibration from when you press the button, you can set it for a 2-second delay just as you do for self-timer photos. If you set the shutter speed for something like 5 to 15 seconds and the aperture for maybe f/3.5 you will probably get a very nice picture with very little trouble.

[grimmydesk]

I'm not very sure a tripod will change something from a boat in the middle of the bay.

Thanks anyway for your help

[Bodryn]

A boat? Hmmm - well, if you must shoot from a boat, maybe if you wait until winter maybe the water will freeze and then a tripod should work, no? :lol: Otherwise, I don't know what you can do unless you use a superfast ISO setting and set to your widest aperture and to perhaps 1/25 of a second, which is about as slow as a handheld photo is going to work if you're lucky. If the city lights are fairly bright, handheld shots might get reasonably good results with a little help from PhotoShop or something.

Anybody else?

[Jon]

If your primary concern is capturing the effect of the city lights, you may need/want to go to manual exposure, and play around with shutter speeds (around 1/60 should capture the lights without getting a lot else) to find what you want. If you want sky-glow, more of the water surface or the land, you'd need the slower speeds, which, in a boat, will give you the camera motion you're having a problem with.