night shooting with digital

Chemical · Apr 20, 2004

im a total beginner in digital photo.
a friend of mine gave a digital cam for some days and i wanna make a night shot.
as i understand u do it with long exposure times
i checked the cam functons - the cam offers exposures only from -2.0 EV to 2.0 EV. this means i cant do nice nightshots. or maybe im tottaly wrong?
the camera is Konica Revio KD-3300

Digital Matt · Apr 20, 2004

It depends on what you mean by "night shots". If you want to take pictures of a city at night, then I'm sure you camera will work fine. Make sure you have a tripod and are using the lowest ISO. If you want to take pictures of blurred car headlights as they race by, you might have trouble, since you really need to have a few seconds shutter speed. My old Olympus digital camera's min shutter was 1 second, and didn't really work that well for that sortof thing, but with a tripod, I took great city shots at night.

Chemical · Apr 20, 2004

what settings should i use to picture buildings in night in latern light??
and as i understand no blurred car headlight shots???

i didnt see where could i change the shutter speed on camera, only exposure. and what does exposure???
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Technical Information
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Type
Digital Still Camera with zoom lens
Effective Pixels
3.1 megapixels
Image Sensor
1/2.5" CCD Sensor, Total Pixels: 3.2 megapixels.
Memory Type
Internal Flash memory 16MB, SD memory card (Optional), MultiMediaCard (MMC) (Optional).
Lens
3x zoom lens
Focal Range
f=5.6~16.8mm (Equivalent to 34~102mm on 35mm film form).
Aperture
F2.8~4.9
LCD Monitor
1.5" colour LCD monitor
Image Resolution (Quality mode: Fine)
Based on 16MB Internal memory: 2048x1536/Approx. 14 images, 1600x1200/Approx. 23 images, 640x480/Approx. 141 images.
(Recordable images may vary according to shooting conditions and settings)
Recording Format
JPEG (DCF1.0 - Design rule for Camera File system), Motion JPEG.
Viewfinder
Optical viewfinder
Shooting Range
Macro: 0.15~1m (WIDE), 0.5~1m (TELE).
Normal: 0.5~infinity (WIDE), 0.8~infinity (TELE).
Shutter Speed
1/2~1/2000sec.
Exposure Control - Control System
Program AE (5~16.6EV)
Exposure Control - Metering System
Spot Photometry
Flash
Auto flash, Red-eye Reduction (with Auto flash), Night-view Portrait, Flash ON, Flash OFF. Effective range: 0.5~3m (WIDE), 0.5~2m (TELE).
White Balance
Auto, Sun, Shade, Sunset, Tungsten, Fluorescent.
Self-timer
Delay 10sec.

Digital Matt · Apr 20, 2004

Well, you probably don't have manual control whatsoever. I don't even see anything there about ISO settings. I would put your exposure compensation to +2 EV, and try a shot on a tripod. This will give you your minimum shutter speed, which it looks is 1/2 sec. Then try a few shots at few different EV values down from there and compare them all on your computer. It all depends on the scene, but 1/2 a second is probably enough to get a decent exposure of a city skyline at night.