Making my pictures not as dark

MikesTooLz · Jan 30, 2005

I have a digital camera that I use to take pictures. Durring the daytime when the sun it out all my pictures look good. But when when it starts to get a little dark out all of my pictures are really dark even with the flash. You can only see things that are close up or things the get reflected from the flash like street signs or car lights.I can however load the pictures on my computer and lighten them up with software. After I do that they look much better and you can see a lot more.

Does anyone know of any tips or settings/ajustments I can make to take better pictures in places with not a lot of light?

darich · Jan 30, 2005

Mike
I think that's a fairly common problem with compact digitals. There are a couple of ways to try to sort this.
Depending on the situation you can try turning the flash off. Depending on the camera this may make noise a real problem...my nikon has a bit of bother but my brother's fuji (which was cheaper and 1mp less) takes better night shots.
You can also try using a Scene setting. They're sometimes good...sometimes not.
I've also found that when shooting in awkward lighting conditions....ie at an indoor kart track during a an overcast sky. The skylights scattered the light and made it near impossible to get any shots with the compact - the light was fine for the eye but not the camera....kept missing the carts or getting big streaks because of the longer exposure.

Lightening an image on the pc is easy when an image is underexposed....but if it's overexposed you'll never get the bright details back....they're gone for good.

MikesTooLz · Jan 30, 2005

ok thanks a lot. Ill try out some stuff and see what I come up with.

darich · Jan 30, 2005

Had another thought!
Can you adjust the ISO setting on the camera?
If so try increasing that. The downside is that the higher you go the more noise you'll get in the image. The amount of noise though depends on the camera...like i said, my brother's fuji had less than my nikon in certain conditions

Rob · Jan 30, 2005

Try and see if there's a +/- EV value. I find that with my Olympus, -2EV (-2 stops of light) corrects the exposure perfectly. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a fiddle to find the option and it resets itself every time you turn it off!

Rob · Jan 30, 2005

I should have mentioned that this will lengthen the exposure and therefore you may need a tripod / beanbag or something to steady the camera.

John E. · Jan 30, 2005

I am assuming you are shooting in automatic mode, please disregard if you are not.

If you are shooting low level light condition's in automaticmode,chances are they will not turn out very well, at least I have hadnoluck with it. Learning to shoot in manual mode will pay off big timeinthe future.

If your pictures are consistently dark adjust your exposurecompensationfor a longer exposure in lowlevel conditions (readyour manual on how todo that). Warning you should use a tripod of findsome way of bracingyourself and the camera..

Built in camera flashes are not very good for distances, I believe most camera's have a way of adjusting the power of the flash.

If there is movement or you have to handhold the camera, as darich saidraise your iso level, I personelly try to work with lowest iso settingI can get away with.

Hope this helps

MikesTooLz · Jan 30, 2005

I dont think my camera has an ajustable ISO. But it does have the EV +/-.
Setting the +/- to -2 and turning off the flash did help, and no I dont have a tripod.

Rob · Jan 30, 2005

I agree with Cruzin, except for the apostrophes and faulty space-bar

). Sadly it sounds like you're at your camera's limit for light metering and you need something which can cope better. Most manual SLR cameras are "better" at this kind of thing, but otherwise, it sounds like you may need to upgrade.