How to take night shot

Depending you are taking human or the night scene:

• If you are taking human: use the flash, or use the night portrait or night scene functions provided by the camera.
• If you are taking the scene: NEVER use flash, and possible with a tripod unless you have a steady hand.

Below is a trial with all different ISO setting (manually) with a automatic setting (the night scene mode) on a Canon SD870 or Ixus 860 wide angle camera. The pictures is crop in 100%.

ISO 100 to 400, the top 3 images, very low noise, but as the exposure speed is too long, so the image is blur.

ISO 800 and 1600, the bottom left 2 images, very high noise, but fast exposure speed, so the image is clear without blur.

The final one ISO 250 (seems like when you choose automatic setting on the night scene mode, the ISO is always fixed to 250), the shutter speed is just nice that all the lights are captured with very clean (no noise) image.

Compare to my previous post, http://hightechwebs.blogspot.com/2008/05/night-shot-with-canon-870-or-ixus-860.html, you got to decide to use manual or auto setting when you are going to take night images. As in cases, like in this building, the auto setting is just nice. Whereas in my previous post, http://hightechwebs.blogspot.com/2008/05/night-shot-with-canon-870-or-ixus-860.html, the auto setting gives a poorer performance.

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Night shot with Canon 870 or Ixus 860

This is the night shot with Canon 870 or Ixus 860.


The first image with ISO 800, exposure time 0.3333 sec. The second image with ISO 1600, exposure time 0.167 sec.


It can be seen that ISO 800 (the first image) has limited noise, enough detials (the human siting at the revier side). And no hand shaking, blur image or out of focus.


While the first two took with manual ISO setting. The last image is taken with the "night scene" functions. I find that it always fix the ISO to be 250.


Unfortunately, in this case, only light can be seen, and many details information are lost.


I will show more night shots in the upcoming post.


If you like to see the video taking at night, look at this post:http://hightechwebs.blogspot.com/2008/05/taking-time-lapse-movie-with-your-canon.html

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Taking "time lapse" movie with your Canon

This is a new feature for Canon camera Poweshot SD870 IS or Ixus 806IS , "time lapse" movie, it is an interesting function that you must try it out, and for sure you will love it. I believe someone will buy this camera due to this feature.

What is time lapse movie? Basically in this mode, you can select a shooting interval of 1 or 2 sec to have a single frame shot. When play back, two hours worth recording time will be compreseed and play back in 8 minutes (if 1 sec interval) or 4 minutes (if 2 sec interval).

This is a very good example.....

But how to take a good time lapse movie.. it is not easy... look at this failure example:

So now you know that, to take time lapse movie, you must fix your camera with a tripod, you can never hold the camera when taking time lapse movie, else it will cause the blur and fainting outcome...

Also bear in mind that, sound cannot be recorded in this "time lapse" mode.


Finally, Canon 870 or 860 also offer a LP (long play) movie function when taking normal movie, it allows you double your shotting time by giving out some quality.. I will show you some example next....

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