I'm amazed

[TheGoofster]

I've been saving up my money to buy a Nikon D60. Unfortunately I won't have enough for at least a few more months. So in the meantime we purchased an inexpensive hand-held digital camera.
We got a Samsung SL30 on sale at Target for only 89.99.

Tonight I was fooling around with it, to see what kind of night mode it had. What I got was much more than I could have expected.

Here are a few pictures I took of our neighborhood (as well as a couple of shots without the night mode):

With Night Mode:

Without Night Mode:

These shots were all taken on a dark and stormy night. I really am quite amazed at the quality of these night mode shots.
The camera has some other modes that I am looking forward to checking out as well.

So anyway, if you are looking for a really good inexpensive camera, be sure to give the Samsung SL30 a check.

 

[VVFF]

So looks like night mode just ups the ISO and uses the largest possible aperture? I wouldn't call it "amazing" but it is useful if you don't know or don't want to manually control the settings.

 

[TheGoofster]

So looks like night mode just ups the ISO and uses the largest possible aperture? I wouldn't call it "amazing" but it is useful if you don't know or don't want to manually control the settings.

Maybe I've just been out of the market for cameras for too long (the last time we bought a camera before this was about 8 years ago), but I just had no idea that such an inexpensive camera was capable of such a thing. About the only special feature my last digital camera had (and we paid quite a bit more for it) was a built in self-timer.

 

[annnewjerz]

So looks like night mode just ups the ISO and uses the largest possible aperture? I wouldn't call it "amazing" but it is useful if you don't know or don't want to manually control the settings.

Actually it looks like it did the exact opposite (I took a peek at the EXIF). The ISO on those pictures was 100, with the exposure time being 6-8 seconds. I'm guessing the OP used a tripod or some sort of table/ledge to stabilize the camera on.

 

[VVFF]

Maybe I've just been out of the market for cameras for too long (the last time we bought a camera before this was about 8 years ago), but I just had no idea that such an inexpensive camera was capable of such a thing. About the only special feature my last digital camera had (and we paid quite a bit more for it) was a built in self-timer.

There is no reason a inexpensive P&S can't take a good night picture. It kept ISO low so noise is low and you used a tripod. You could do the exact some thing in manual mode of any camera that has it. Auto mode just tries to shorten the exposure time as most people want to avoid "blurry" handheld shots,