HELP! I WANT to love my Nikon but when it comes to dark pics, I've got issues...

[Tinkerbellarella]

I have a Nikon CoolPix either 200 or 210 (sorry I don't have it on me at the moment):

which I LOVE...as long as the sun is shining.

BUT.

As soon as the sun goes down and I try taking nighttime/dim lighting shots I'm SORELY disappointed. I admit, it could absolutely be user error but I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

If I leave the settings to auto-flash (which is what I keep it on 99% of the time) for night/dim shots, the shots come out, understandably, dark and grainy.

e.g.

If I change it to the nighttime setting (you know, indicated by the little guy with the moon in the background), almost all of the time it's actually worse! The shots are ALWAYS EXTREMELY blurry even though the lighting is better. Even if I set it down on something and keep it as still as possible, still no dice. And FORGET holding in my hands.

(Sorry, no example of this. In a rage I deleted them all!)

If I turn the flash OFF I can actually sometimes get a shot, but only if there is some other lighting going on (i.e. the Spectromagic floats).

I've also found that using the zoom function makes a huge difference too (and not usually in a good way).

I REALLY want to love and keep my camera. I do. I've had it for a while and, as I'm obviously not a photography pro, it's pretty easy and takes some gorgeous shots. But I'm not sure where to go here. I simply CANNOT go on another trip to Disney and feel photographically crippled at night.

HELP!!!

 

[YesDear]

Oh my, where do I start. I will be honest with you that your first thought is probably correct. It is user error. Or, more exactly lack of photography knowledge.

The camera could have a mechanical issue but what you describe is classic for someone who does not know the camera's limitations.

Point & shoots are amazing technology today but the cannot do it all. Probably the most common question asked on this board by people is that they want a point & shoot that will be able to freeze motion at sporting events inside or out and that will also take great pictures from a distance inside at recitals, plays, programs, etc. They want it to take great close-up pictures and be able to zoom for that field shot Oh yeah, they want it be cost in the $250 range! The camera does not exist.

All cameras need light to work properly. They do not care if they get a lot of light over a short period of time or small amounts of light over a long period of time. During the day you obviously have plenty of light. At night the camera must either leave the lens open for a longer time or have the ability to open real wide and have the sensitivity of the camera turned way up. When you turn the sensitivity up you get what we call noise. That is the grainy stuff. In photography we use a term called ISO. It signifies the
fastness, sensitivity, of the sensor which is the little chip in the camera that captures the image. The larger the number, the more sensitive it is to light and at some point the more noise you get. Your camera can go up to 1000. Look at the two pictures taken by Gdad of the ghosts in HM and the dog in PTC. Both of those pictures amazing. Both taken with available light. The ISO setting on those pictures were 12800! Your camera as good as it is for what it is is never going to take that shot!

As far as the zoom is concerned there are two types of zooms on your camera. (I looked yours up) You have a 3x optical zoom and a 3x digital zoom. The optical part means you camera will see from 38mm-114mm. That is a small wide angle to a small zoom. The three x digital part means that the camera will take the optical image and enlarge it digitally to three times the 144mm image. The short explanation is it looks like crude. ( I am trying to be nice here)

Your camera does have image stabilization in it. That is to help you take a picture with the camera lens open longer. I would guess if you really try you could hand hold a picture down to about 1/30th of a second. That is a long time in photography but an eternity in your hand. For spectro pictures you have two challenges. First the camera needs to stay open longer and the float is moving. You are probably setting the camera on something and pushing the shutter. You may not realize that even pushing the shutter will probably move the camera. The best way to take a picture at night with your camera is turn on the timer put the camera down and not touch it. Kind of hard to know exactly what you are doing. I did not see it specifically but I bet your flash also has a radius of probably no more than 10ft.

Without seeing the other pictures I cannot offer an opinion as to what happened, but I feel that most of your challenges are dealt with above.

The bottom line is you have a great camera that can do some good stuff. It just has it's limitations. Read your manual and learn the different things it can do. Auto settings will give you automatic results. In daylight that is probably really good. At night or in low light, it is challenged. Make sure you are only using the optical zoom. You will not like the digital. Get you a little gorillapod tripod for night shots. Practice with it at home to get good using it.

You may ask will a better camera take a better image. The answer is a simple yes... as long as you know what you are doing.

 

[zackiedawg]

Don't worry - it's not your camera. It's the class of camera, and the way you want to use it. Small sensor P&S cameras and low light handheld shots do not go together...no matter which brand you choose...so don't hate your Nikon!

It's one of those limitations you just have to accept - sort of like buying a compact gas-sipping car - you're not going to blame the car for not being able to go 200mph on the autobahn...you know you need a serious sports car to do that. Same goes for cameras - you've got to step up to a DSLR camera to get that ability - and if you do, you'll have to compromise in other areas (compactness, weight, extra lenses, cleaning, price). So you just have to settle for what you need the most.

And forget flashes...compact cameras have tiny ones designed for closeup portraits - family shots at a table, or people standing 5-10 feet away. They aren't designed to light up rooms or outdoor scenes...so just turn it off!

As for night shots - there is one method to getting better night shots with a compact camera - and it's the ONLY method. But it should work with yours too in most situations. You need to use a very long shutter speed, and put the camera on a solid stable platform with hands OFF! A tripod is best, but any wall, ledge, garbage can, post, fence, etc with a flat surface and no vibration will do. And you should use the self-timer to take the shot for you...engage the timer, press the shutter, then don't touch the camera until it is completely done taking the shot (it may be a few seconds).

How to get long shutter speeds? Well, you're camera should have two night modes - one that uses a flash (usually called night portrait) and one that doesn't (usually just called night). You want the one without flash. In this mode, the camera will try to choose a big aperture to let in light, and use the longest shutter speed it needs to to get the scene.

You can achieve the same effect if your camera has a S (Shutter priority) mode or Manual mode, where you can set the shutter speed yourself. Sometimes, even 'P' or program mode will pull it off if the light is not completely dark.

Also note - Your camera has an ISO setting - raising it higher will allow the camera to 'gain up' to find more light, but it also makes the shot more noisy or grainy. If you've got at least moderate light from streetlamps or ambient lighting, set the ISO lower and you'll get much nicer results.

I have a very very thin small compact camera called a Sony T100 - it's absolutely no better than your camera in low light situations, and has no manual modes for controllability - just scene modes like yours. And I have a maximum shutter speed of 1 second, which is very limiting for low light shots. Yet if I follow the rules, let the timer take the shot, put the camera down on a solid surface, set the ISO lower, and use night scene mode, I can pull off usable night shots:

I promise your camera can do as well as mine, if not better. Just learn the limitations, and how to get the most out of it. Remember that even when your camera can take night shots like the above, there are still some things you can't take that way - you can't shoot things in motion without having them blur. Sometimes that's a cool effect, but just don't expect a scene of Fulton's boat above with your family waving in front of it at night coming out crisp and clear! If you want to shoot motion at night, or anything that would be considered a handheld capable low light shot, you need a bigger sensor camera that can achive a very high ISO setting and a very big aperture on the lens. That's pretty much DSLR territory (hey, you gotta get some advantage out of buying those big heavy cameras!).

Hope that helps a bit - try a few night scenes like the above, with some lighting in them for the camera to detect - use the night scene mode with no flash, set the ISO lower (200 or less), lay the camera on a nice, stable, flat surface, and let the self-timer take the photo. Then see how the results come out.

 

[ukcatfan]

We have a S210 as our compact camera. The advice you have received is dead on! It is just a matter of knowing how to use it and its limitations. I would even go as far as saying it performs above average for a p&s. Just an FYI, the S210 does not have the manual modes that zackiedawg mentioned, but there are plenty of scene modes.

 

[boBQuincy]

For nighttime photos of things that don't move, one of the mini tripods will work wonders. If your camera does not have a remote release you can try the self timer mode to avoid shaking the camera by pressing the shutter button.

Using the flash will only make things worse by lighting up near objects while leaving more distant objects very dark.

The widest aperture is at the shortest zoom, zooming in will lose a lot of light so for best performance in the dark keep it at wide angle.

There are limitations to this type of camera (although often not as many as we think) and getting the best out of it in the dark can take a lot of adjustments with the settings, and a lot of time. Sometimes it just will not do what we want and then it is time to step up to a camera that is more suited to that kind of photography.

 

[Tinkerbellarella]

No joke, after reading all of this advice from ALL of you, I was almost moved to tears. You have NO IDEA how much this will help me!!!

AND how it resolves my love issues with my camera. LOL

I've always known that my camera has limitations. I just wasn't sure if this was at good at it was going to get (obviously not!) or if I was doing something wrong (obviously so!).

I'm SO fine with it being user error because that means there is hope yet!

I have a very deap-seated interest in photography but haven't yet devoted much time to some deap-seated learning about photography. In the next couple of years I'd like to take a photography class and ultimately upgrad to a nice DSLR. My mother actually has an old-school Nikon 35-mm with all sorts of flashes/lenses that I've coveted FOREVER but I think I'll be more of a digital girl myself.

I'm not looking for perfection, I'm not looking to get EVERY shot, just trying to correct what I'm doing wrong. Zackiedog, your pictures are GREAT! Those are the kinds of shots I'm looking for. The teacup shot is incredible! Yay for it being ME being inept and not totally the camera!

I can't wait to go home to practice. I'm so excited now. Thank you, again, for all of your help! It is so VERY much appreciated.

(Oh, and if I could someday take just one picture the way Gdad and you others take pictures, I could die happy. I do "okay". You guys blow me away with your skill every time!)

 

[YesDear]

You will find a great amount of help and assistance here if you want to learn photography. While this is a Disney site there are some really good photographers here willing to share. It is fine to covet your mom's Nikon film stuff, my suggestion is not to spend a lot of time with it. I have been shooting since high school in the early 70's with Nikon filmcameras. While exposure is exposure and the basic terminology is the same, digital gives you soooo much more control over the image and the greatest thing is you get to develop the picture yourself. The next best thing is you do not have to pay for images you do not like.

You made a comment about keepers. Many pros will tell you that they will "keep" maybe 10% of what they shoot. My first suggestion to you is do not delete photos in your camera. You have a better chance to corrupt the card if you do. Also always make sure the camera is off when you take out the card.

Practice is a great thing to do. Keep your camera with you and take pictures of everything, but pay attention to the exif data on the pictures and see what works and what does not. Most importantly have fun!!!

 

[NateNLogansDad]

If I may chime in here for a sec, I just want to reiterate something from the OP. I've said before that you guys are the photography gods to us who are still learning how to take our camera's off of the auto setting and I still think and believe the same. For every newbie and simple question that is asked, there are plenty of us lurking in the background waiting for an answer because we are going through the same thing. I guess I just want to say thanks to everybody who takes the time to help us out. You really don't know what it means to everybody.

 

[Tinkerbellarella]

the exif data

exif?

Um.

Shot in the dark, exposure info??

 

[YesDear]

EXIF

That is a file that is created every time you take a picture. It gives you some very detailed info about the image. That info is called meta data. It will tell you the make, model of the camera. It also tells you what settings were on when the pictures were taken.

So if you take a picture and it looks great look at that data and you will see what worked!

 

[Tinkerbellarella]

So if you take a picture and it looks great look at that data and you will see what worked!

Excellent! Thanks. I just went to one of my pics and found it easily.

I do have one more question (for anyone), above someone mentioned not deleting photos from the memory card in my camera. Is it better, then, to delete the from the card on my computer? Should I then reformat the card on the camera every time?

 

[YesDear]

I recommend you never delete a picture in your camera unless you plan to take no more pictures on that card until they are transferred to your computer, disk, etc. I also almost always reformat my cards in my camera. That is where they are going to be used and that is the system that should reformat my card.

I use lexar cards alot. They have their own software and sometimes I will do a reformat in their software.

I am not the techno geek some are on this board but the reason you do not want to erase in your camera, I understand, is because when you do you create blank spaces in the card. The size of each picture is not exactly the same. You then start to split the images on the card and they have a better chance of becoming corrupt.