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Night shots with p&S....

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Rakumi

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Is it at all possible to get as good night shots with a P&S as compared to a dslr if given a tripod and low iso and long shutter exposures?
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Darkness is the monster and your shutter is your sword, aperture your shield and iso your armor. Strike fast with your sword and defend well with your shield and hope your armor holds up.
 
As good as a DSRL? No, because there is a larger sensor in a DSLR which will capture more information. However you have mostly covered what needs to be done to maximize the quality.

I can however suggest using the timer so that you don't have to physically touch the camera to take a picture (less shake), and taking a burst of shots, that way you can process them for superresolution.
 
Thank you very much. I did not know that the sensor played a role in things when you were not taking high Iso pictures. So I guess I must stick with my dslr for the good stuff.
--

Darkness is the monster and your shutter is your sword, aperture your shield and iso your armor. Strike fast with your sword and defend well with your shield and hope your armor holds up.
 
P&S can have really small sensors. If you ever draw out the different sizes, it's really something. Also, RAW is much more forgiving as well IMO... if you are capturing things of dark nature, having more bit depth space to record it in should make a difference.
 
The larger sensor delivers lower noise at all ISO level. There is always some noise, but at low ISO it's usually not significant enough to cause problems. Larger sensors also do better on dynamic range.

A well taken DSLR photo should also be capable of producing better resolution that a P&S, even if the P&S has a larger pixel count on paper. This is again down the physics of light and the large per pixel area on the sensor. To be specific, P&S sensors are more likely to be diffraction limited. As a result P&S images don't hold up as well as large sensor cameras when printed large or cropped heavily.

You can't do anything about the diffraction issue, but for long exposures of static subjects you can do something about the noise and dynamic range.

If you take a set of bracketed exposures for HDR you will find that the processing that blends images together will also reduce the amount of noise. You can also average shots taken at the same exposure, but this is less effective than a HDR at reducing noise. Obviously doing a HDR means you get extra dynamic range as well, so for long exposures at low ISO of static subjects I'd recommend you consider doing a HDR if possible.

The reduction of noise when blending images in a HDR process is because you effectively discard the darker parts of each image where noise is most visible. That's over simplified but you get the idea.

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StephenG
 
both look nice. What p&s?
--

Darkness is the monster and your shutter is your sword, aperture your shield and iso your armor. Strike fast with your sword and defend well with your shield and hope your armor holds up.
 
Rakumi said:
Is it at all possible to get as good night shots with a P&S as compared to a dslr if given a tripod and low iso and long shutter exposures?
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Click to expand...
Compare a Hummer army go anywhere vehicle with a little Volkswagen. At all times, the Hummer will be bigger and take more passengers and go over more terrain than a little Volkswagen.

However, is that the point of comparing the two vehicles? In that case, might as well throw all the Volkswagens onto the junk heap and drive Hummers.

You are comparing two cameras at low ISO and on a tripod. That means it is nearly like shooting in daylight. There are millions of P&S sold and they produce "good enough" shots for millions of owners. Yes, the P&S has a smaller sensor (Volkswagen) but the photo is still acceptable enough for people to earn money - produce magazine shots etc.....

The P&S being a lower cost camera and a simpler market camera may not have the mod cons - like holding the shutter open on "B", having a remote or wired shutter release, self timer, choice of f/2 lens and so on. Those are its disadvantages. But at ISO 50 or 100, it will produce satisfying photos.

--



Ananda
http://anandasim.blogspot.com
https://sites.google.com/site/asphotokb

'There are a whole range of greys and colours - from
the photographer who shoots everything in iA / green
AUTO to the one who shoots Manual Everything. There
is no right or wrong - there are just instances of
individuality and individual choice.'
 
baloo_buc said:
Canon A610.

The P&S was at ISO50 and with a tripod while the dSLR was hand held at ISO720. Which one do you think is from the P&S photo?
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Victor
Bucuresti, Romania
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m268/victor_petcu/
http://picasaweb.google.com/teodor.nitica/
http://picasaweb.google.com/vpreallize/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/v_petcu/
Click to expand...
Well, you are probably asking a trick question and I'll regret it, but what the heck, I am an amateur. So I will say the second image is from the p&s.
 
Though I really have no clue and I am just taking a guess. lol
--

Darkness is the monster and your shutter is your sword, aperture your shield and iso your armor. Strike fast with your sword and defend well with your shield and hope your armor holds up.
 
See... I saw the brightness and well dynamic range on the top photo and thought it was probably more likely the slr... though I know sometimes different metering situations may make things vary.
baloo_buc said:
The first was taken with Canon A610 (a very good 5 M compact camera) while the second was taken with Nikon D40. They are so close that you should look very attentively to see that the sky in the first is kind of blotchy. Both are making beautiful A4 (20x30 cm or 8x12") prints.
--
Victor
Bucuresti, Romania
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m268/victor_petcu/
http://picasaweb.google.com/teodor.nitica/
http://picasaweb.google.com/vpreallize/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/v_petcu/
Click to expand...
--

Darkness is the monster and your shutter is your sword, aperture your shield and iso your armor. Strike fast with your sword and defend well with your shield and hope your armor holds up.
 
I think I just had some bad cameras for the job. I just bought a Casio exilim fh100. I also have before hand a canon SD780. The canon took pretty good daytime shots to me... I blew some up 20x30 and they are clearn and crisp. No manual controls so the night time photos seem not to come out so great. sometimes certain test shots in my apartment are ok but it seems to unpredictable. The Casio I just got and it seems a bit softer than the Canon from my eyes and does not expose correctly or meter right or something compared to the canon.
AnandaSim said:
Rakumi said:
Is it at all possible to get as good night shots with a P&S as compared to a dslr if given a tripod and low iso and long shutter exposures?
--
Click to expand...
Compare a Hummer army go anywhere vehicle with a little Volkswagen. At all times, the Hummer will be bigger and take more passengers and go over more terrain than a little Volkswagen.

However, is that the point of comparing the two vehicles? In that case, might as well throw all the Volkswagens onto the junk heap and drive Hummers.

You are comparing two cameras at low ISO and on a tripod. That means it is nearly like shooting in daylight. There are millions of P&S sold and they produce "good enough" shots for millions of owners. Yes, the P&S has a smaller sensor (Volkswagen) but the photo is still acceptable enough for people to earn money - produce magazine shots etc.....

The P&S being a lower cost camera and a simpler market camera may not have the mod cons - like holding the shutter open on "B", having a remote or wired shutter release, self timer, choice of f/2 lens and so on. Those are its disadvantages. But at ISO 50 or 100, it will produce satisfying photos.

--



Ananda
http://anandasim.blogspot.com
https://sites.google.com/site/asphotokb

'There are a whole range of greys and colours - from
the photographer who shoots everything in iA / green
AUTO to the one who shoots Manual Everything. There
is no right or wrong - there are just instances of
individuality and individual choice.'
Click to expand...
--

Darkness is the monster and your shutter is your sword, aperture your shield and iso your armor. Strike fast with your sword and defend well with your shield and hope your armor holds up.
 
That shows why I liked so much that camera. It had a very limited DR, ISO from 50 to 400 and no IS. It would be quite difficult to get the same quality photos with today cameras (maybe Canon G11 is near). The first photo was not so challenging since the DR required would have been of about 7 stops (grass versus the tower).

The second photo has also a very broad DR (the grass in foreground is about 9 stops from the lighted building so with my old Canon it would have been black. Moreover it was shot at ISO720.
--
Victor
Bucuresti, Romania
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m268/victor_petcu/
http://picasaweb.google.com/teodor.nitica/
http://picasaweb.google.com/vpreallize/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/v_petcu/
 
The dynamics will change when you introduce subjects into these shots. The above shots are great but it is hard to get as good a picture as that one with a PnS when the subjects are in.
 
Rakumi said:
I think I just had some bad cameras for the job. I just bought a Casio exilim fh100. I also have before hand a canon SD780. The canon took pretty good daytime shots to me... I blew some up 20x30 and they are clearn and crisp. No manual controls so the night time photos seem not to come out so great. sometimes certain test shots in my apartment are ok but it seems to unpredictable. The Casio I just got and it seems a bit softer than the Canon from my eyes and does not expose correctly or meter right or something compared to the canon.
Click to expand...
Look at Mike's. Shot with an old Kodak P880 where ISO 200 sucks. I know. I have one.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1011&message=37403828

--



Ananda
http://anandasim.blogspot.com
https://sites.google.com/site/asphotokb

'There are a whole range of greys and colours - from
the photographer who shoots everything in iA / green
AUTO to the one who shoots Manual Everything. There
is no right or wrong - there are just instances of
individuality and individual choice.'
 
I'm going to agree with Ananda and Baloo...though a P&S will have more limited control, and the smaller sensor may not capture ultimately as much detail when really zooming in for close inspection, most P&S cameras at lowest ISO and on a tripod can take fine night shots, that would work wonderfully as prints or on display. I dare say quite a few P&S photographers that know what they're doing are getting better night shots than a fair share of DSLR owners who don't know what they're doing. Not all P&S are equal, and the P&S is definitely a lesser tool than a DSLR, but the technique and the photographer's skill can yield very good results from a P&S.

I've been into night photography with digital cameras for a decade...though I mostly use my DSLRs now, I got by with pleasing results from several P&S cameras for many years - everything from ultracompact pocket cams to small-sensor ultrazooms...some that came out pretty well over the years:













I don't feel like I could have massively improved on those with a DSLR. There are shots I can get with DSLRs that I couldn't with the P&S cameras, but properly set up and with the right manual settings and lowest ISO, and on a tripod with a remote shutter release or self-timer, it's still possible to get some lovely, detailed, sharp night shot results from the lowly P&S.

--
Justin
galleries: http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg
 
They look awesome. I hope i can get shots like that.
--

Darkness is the monster and your shutter is your sword, aperture your shield and iso your armor. Strike fast with your sword and defend well with your shield and hope your armor holds up.
 
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