Replacement Flash? NX1000

OtterBoxing wrote:

Thanks for all the insights guys, I really appreciate it.

What are the best options/settings in lower light settings when flash can't be used (or meanwhile till I do purchase a flash)?

Is it best that I just use the Night setting in Scene mode or would it be more effective to manually adjust each setting to get the clearest shot?

I'd love to hear from one of the pros if they have any other thoughts, but here's what I do:

Use Aperture mode and set the f-stop to the lowest value (maximum light admittance). The camera will pick the necessary shutter speed, which might be very slow. If it's too slow, you either use a tripod or increase the ISO. The default ISO setting is "auto", which is what you want, but it has a (settable) limit on how high it will automatically set it. Pretty sure the default is 800. Every doubling means doubling the sensitivity to light. Quality goes down quickly after 800, but it will go two steps higher. Worth trying if it's the difference between a picture or no picture. (Look for the Auto ISO Range setting.)

When does a shutter speed become too slow? For me maybe less than 1/30th of a second for stationary subjects. I can get superficially Ok shots at a half or a fourth of that, but they are clearly not that sharp. (And it doesn't help at all that when the shutter is that slow it means the auto ISO is maxed at 800.)

Not sure what Night scene does, but some of those are pretty smart so definitely give it a try. Pretty sure you'll only get a jpeg from that, but if that comes out decent, Ok. A big sacrifice with a jpeg though is that if you give up a lot of leeway for adjusting things later. If you shoot in RAW you can do a lot on a computer later to fix exposure problems. E.g. add more exposure to dark areas or increase the overall exposure. The Samsung Raw Converter that came with the camera will give you a start at that, but there are better programs if you start doing a lot of tweaking.