Hello I have an Olympus C2040 digital camera and I have been attempting to shoot night picture without a flash, in order to capture the appropriate mood. Mainly taking pictures of Xmas lights for the holiday season. I notice when I do this though I get slight blurring to the lights themselves. Could it be because I am not shooting with a tripod and the camera is moving ever so slightly when I shoot? I am shooting with a with an open apature so the picture isn't so too dark. Any suggestions? Thanks, Michael

Yes, a lot of suggestions! Don't shoot at night, when the sky is dark...unless it's in the summer and the sky is clear. (see below) The sky at night is black, and black means no light means no exposure means no photo. If your flash is strong enough, you could shoot interesting scenes at night, but what you want to shoot can not be done at night. (unless you live in a place like Las Vegas, where there's more lights than dark sky). The trick is to shoot just before it get's dark, and so to create the illusion of a night photo. (You know, the moment during dusk when the sky is already blue, but there's still a lot of light far away in the horizon). Long exposure times will make the sky turn lighter, and all lights glow more....and at the same time it will not over expose your photos. Now, during winter dusk only lasts half an hour, or even less...making the perfect time to shoot very, very limited. During the summer the sun is often still able to light up clouds that are high enough all through the night.....with a full moon and a clear, non-foggy/humid night you could make wonderful photos ALL night long!! Try it sometime next summer...especially during those warm nights it's a great thing to do! Also, all shots you do with long exposure times should be done with a tripod.....there's no way to keep your camera steady for a long time. Don't even think about it. On the other hand, try smaller exposure times, like 1/50 to a few seconds first, so you can practice by hand....they just might be long enough for the sort of photos you want to shoot. Another thing I can add is that the type of light you are shooting will also change your photo a lot. Street lights, car lights and neon usually glows a lot with exposure times of 1 second and more, while normal bulb lights won't....not even after 30 seconds. About the ap. it's best to go for the small number. You're exposure times are going to be higher, but that doesn't matter cause you'll use a tripod anyway. The best thing is that your depth of field will be very wide/open, so when shooting with still a bit of light you'll capture the maximum amount of detail (from the front to the back of your photo). But if your photo isn't very deep, you can also go for f/16, f/11 or even open it up a bit more. Last thing to say is to use the automatic shutter option, that you usually use when you want to be in one of your own photos. If you'd press the shutter, even on a tripod, you might press the whole camera down a bit...so put it on auto, wait a couple of seconds...don't touch the camera or tripod and 'click', there's a perfectly sharp photo! Have fun :)

I think you need to use a tripod or set your camera on a car, bench or anything that won't budge. You can then use your self timer to make sure you don't experience any camera shake. Your camera maybe also be having problems focussing at night but you can't be sure until you solve your steadiness problem. Stopping down your lens as Rork1973 mentioned is a good idea. Good luck.

the best thing you can do for night shots is to use a tripod and a cable release (if you set the exposure time to "B", so you dont actually -press- the button to shoot. Sounds lazy, but it can mean the dif between sharp shots, and blurred shots). If you only want to shoot between the aperture times on the camera, use a tripod, and just set the timer (like Visitor said) so there wont be any camera shake. As for Rork's idea of never shooting at night, hmm, i disagree. I did shooting in what seemed to be pitch black night with a tripod, and managed to get pictures of clouds I didn't know existed (long exposures, 8 seconds and above). If yer gonna shoot nights with a tripod and cable release, you might as well use low speed film and take your time. If you wanna shoot nights with out a tripod, use high speed film, 800ASA and up. woops, justrealized yer using a digital camera. From what I know, digis tend to start blowing once the "film" speed is set above 400, so I dunno. Best to use a cable relase, low speed, and just let it burn in i guess. Still, anyone else reads this and finds what I said useful, go for it.

I'm with yer on this one, limikee, it's the stumbling block I've hit on very recently trying to learn my manual functions. Unfortunately (if your camera is anything like mine) one of the best ideas of using a cable release is out, coz most digi's don't support that.... if yours has a remote-control available as an extra it'll be worth thinking about. Tripod=definite must. Failing that Visitors idea of a solid object is cool, but you may have problems if the subject is at any angle above or below..... The timer idea is what I use, coz I can set it at 2 seconds...useless if there is any unpredictable movement involved of course, eg. timing a car to be passing in 2 seconds....fun.... Finally, focussing - this is (I wish I could say was) my main problem too - on auto focus if it's too dark my camera automatically focuses at 2m... lot of good that is... and how do you focus on something in the dark with a digital if a) you can't see it coz it's too dark and b) the digital has a focusing ring without numbers that just adjusts the focus as you spin it around??? hmmm...... my solution? I've added a 500,000 candle power hand-held rechargeable lamp to my xmas list.... Use the lamp, focus on auto, switch to manual focus while it's still set, switch to manual settings and take photo... sounds long winded but should just take 1 or 2 seconds. In theory. Hope this epic novel helps....lol (",)

These were taken in deep nighttime. Long exposures on tripod--but I'll take again just at dusk.

Too dark---I shot in manual, long exposures, smaller ap to get that 'starry' effect in lights (suggested by someone on another forum). However, not enough definition, so I'll try again another night. I took many this night--long exposures, even bulb up to 15 sec., but.....

Diane

Thank you for all of your imput. I hope to try taking some more pictures this weekend with a tripod and will post results for everyone and Diane since she seems to be having similar problems as me. I will try varing apature shots as well as exposure times to see what best results are. I have come to the conclusion that I am better shooting in manual mode instead of automatic mode, since it seems that the camera has a harder time focusing in on the lights at night. Thanks again for all of the advise so far, Michael

manual is always best anyways. If the camera is set to auto focus, you never really know what the focus will look like. Even if yer in a rush (and if yer in a rush , the camera likely won't have enough time time to focus properly either), it's best to go manual. Cameras generally focus in the middle of the frame, and shooting stuff that's main view point that the eye jumps to being in the centre usually makes for very boring pictures. Jordy, for all the pounds spent on that camera, it should be able to do multiplication tables dammit! ry

I've had some great success lately with night photography. I could hardly go wrong, though, during this great aurora display.

Nov. 5th, 2001 - 3:30am local time, near Beechwood WI USA
Fuji 400 Superia film, Yashinon lens at f/2.8, 7sec exposure.