Digital Camera Advice.. Taking Pictures @ Nighttime? Cybershot?

[ukcatfan]

Do a search on the forums over at dpreview.com on fireworks/nighttime shots and you will find more than enough information.

From what I have learned and practiced, the best fireworks shots require a camera that has full manual controls. My best shots were wideangle at 2-4 second shutter speeds, the lowest ISO (50) for my camera, and the smallest aperture (f8) for my camera. Fireworks fall relatively slowly in the sky. With the longer exposure, they fill more of the frame. The long exposure is why you need to keep the ISO and aperture to the smallest values. With higher ISOs (~400-800) and larger apertures (~f2.8-f3.2) and a long exposure, it would become washed out.

I agree that you should explore using your camera before going and upgrading. It might be all that you need. I had the Olympus D-460 as my first digital and it actually took very good pictures for a 1MP. It was a very nice camera for its time.

The following is my opinion on brands. I am sure others will disagree. But, if you do decide to go for a new camera, I do not think you can go wrong with the newer models from Canon, Panasonic, Nikon & Olympus. Many people like Kodak, and they are probably the easiest to use, but their picture quality just can not stand up to the ones I mentioned. Don't get me wrong, they take good pictures, but the others take great pictures. Don't be afraid of a camera that sounds too technical. Every camera has an auto setting for users with less experience. Then you can learn to use the advanced features on your own time.

If there is one thing I can say about buying a new camera that is the most important, it is this. Go and try them out in person and buy the one that impresses you the most. I suggest going to a real camera store instead of the local Best Buy or Carcuit City. The big chains do not really let you handle them very much and sometimes do not even let you put in a memory card so you can take a real picture. And their sales "experts" only know what their sales managers tell them to know. They do not point you to the best camera, they point you to the camera that gives them our their corporation the best kickbacks. After you know which one you want, buy it from the cheapest reputable place.

 

[CAJUNWDWFAN]

Alright.. I am an AMATEUR obviously.. I am going to be reading the manual in a matter of just a few minutes lol.

It's a Olympus Camedia D-560 Zoom..one... lol

I have an olympus d-550 and I used it to take pictures in 2003. It worked great. I plan to use it again this December.

Here is a photo album of pictures that I took.

http://www.wdwinfo.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=48845

 

[Kelly Grannell]

I have a Canon SD400 5.0MP and it has a feature on it specifically for firework shots.

Still, don't forget to use a tripod.

 

[CleveRocks]

I have heard also to turn off flash from other people.. it just doesn't make sense to me.

The sense of it is, flashes go only about 10 feet or so, so if your subject is farther away than that it won't have any effect on your picture. I always chuckle when I'm at a baseball game or concert and see people in the stands using the flash to take pics of something going on hundreds of feet away. There are some instances where it could actually make the picture worse, such as any time there may be otherwise invisible particles in the air, such as light fog or dust.

Also... whenever I zoom in with my digital, it's insanely blurry .. Anyone have a camera that zooms in A LOT and still has great quality? Thanks

With a digital camera, the higher the megapixels the better. Two identical cameras, one with 2.0 megapixel and one with 7.0 megapixels, the 7.0 is going to take a clearer, sharper picture that is a better candidate to be blown up to a larger print.

HOWEVER, the most important component to taking good pictures is the photographer. You can have one person use a $2,000 camera and another person use a disposable bought at a mini-mart, and the better pictures will be taken by the better photographer, not the better camera. Of course, there are exceptions to this -- a more expensive camera will let you do neat tricks that a cheap one won't (involving, for example, depth of field), but for general snapshots the quality of the camera doesn't matter as long as it's decent and there's nothing wrong with it (and in the case of digital, that it's at least about 3 megapixels or so).

I always used a fancy 35 mm film camera with a lot of bells and whistles and thought myself somewhat of a photo snob (I have a lot of 8 x 10's in my house and I've sold some at a local restaurant). A few years back I went on a cruise with a bunch of people, and one friend, another decent amateur photographer, came on the cruise with a bag-full of disposable cameras. We purposely decided to take a lot of the same shots so we could compare later. For almost all the shots it's impossible to tell which camera took the pictures. The only times you can tell is when I used the zoom lens rather than the regular lens, or when I messed around with depth of field or shutter speed.

Just so you know, when I bought a digital I went for as many megapixels as I wanted to afford, but also limited myself to a camera I could fit in my pocket for convenience, which ruled out all of the SLRs as well as the point-and-shoots with larger zoom lenses. My FujiFilm E550 has 6.3 megapixels and a 4x zoom. Cost me $315 on sale.

-- Eric

 

[Kelly Grannell]

HOWEVER, the most important component to taking good pictures is the photographer. You can have one person use a $2,000 camera and another person use a disposable bought at a mini-mart, and the better pictures will be taken by the better photographer, not the better camera. Of course, there are exceptions to this -- a more expensive camera will let you do neat tricks that a cheap one won't (involving, for example, depth of field), but for general snapshots the quality of the camera doesn't matter as long as it's decent and there's nothing wrong with it (and in the case of digital, that it's at least about 3 megapixels or so).

-- Eric

Agreed

 

[Kelly Grannell]

I just bought a Kodak - it actually has a setting specifically designed for fireworks! I can't wait to test it out..

There is no such thing as "specifically designed for fireworks", it's just a pre-set slow shutter speed. It's just like using any camera's Auto mode and force the flash to be turned off. That means, you will still need to use tripod.

Fireworks mode is the biggest gimmick of them all (don't get me wrong, my tertiary camera has that mode, but after using it once, I found that there is no difference between Fireworks vs Auto with Flash Off)

 

[Tigger2252]

I just had to replace my Nikon Coolpix (dd accidentally spilled soda during a party ) with a Kodak Easy Share Z740 5.0 megapixels with a 10x zoom. I haven't had a chance to try night shots with it, but will be using it next month at WDW. I loved my little Nikon, but so far I am really pleased with this camera, and I really like the feel of it. It's not nearly as small and I like the faster shutter. I missed a lot of shots because of the delay on my old camera.

 

[PIRATEGIRL007]

My Nikon Coolpix 4100 has this feature as well. It works really well.

Anyone know if the Olypmus A600 fireworks feature works well? I scored a really good deal 2 weeks ago and couldn't pass it up. When I saw it had fireworks and nighttime modes my first thought was Fantasmic. I want to try it out before we leave, but don't have anywhere to get any fireworks pics around here.

 

[jdonat]

I've got a Canon S50, and it has all the priorities that a film camera has.
I've used shutter priority 1/60th of a second shooting fireworks since I bought
an AE-1 in 1978... I've used Canons since 1978 and really prefer them to
anything else...

I posted a buncha pics using this method on the web....

take a look! I think they came out pretty good....

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/donats@sbcglobal.net/

John

 

[twoprincesses]

I just bought a Cybershot, not the big screen one that is about $500 but the $375 smaller one. We bought the $500 at first thinking it would be better, but turned out that the $375 one was. The bigger screened Cybershot takes up a lot of battery and every night I had to charge it. But the smaller PS200 i think it's called doesn't have to be charged for like 3 days. It also has the burst mode that captures continuous movement at each second for about 15 or 16 shots. I really like this camera, I think it was a good buy!

 

[susan1]

hi
i have a fuji finepix f10 - i found that the best firework pictures i took were with the camera left at auto and turning the flash off. i have continous shooting mode and out of two lots of forty had forty to fifty decent pictures!