ikilled007: More Car News

Michael (

ikilled007) wrote,
@ 2008-05-15 14:01:00

Current music:

The Police - Walking in Your Footsteps

More Car News
Ok, so the S5 is going to be my play car. It arrives in a few weeks so I needed something that I could put the baby in and such for when I'm driving... something more sedanish. I went with the Alfa Romeo 166. I grabbed a 2007 diesel with 12,000k on it for 22,000 Euros. Good enough for me. I am picking it up on monday after they detail it and all. Here's an idea of what it looks like:

Let's see what else... today we went to the beach. I'll put the pics behind the cut because you all know what the beach looks like by now. Also, they took down the scaffolding since they have finally finished our building. I'll toss up a couple of pics of/from a balcony now that you can actually see shit. Oh yeah, and smjayman, I'm going up the mountain thrice per day now, so behind the cut are some pics from last night's trip to the top. For some reason my camera takes shitty night pics -- my guess is user error. In case anyone knows what I'm doing wrong, it's a Nikon Coolpix S9.

More later.

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re: night pictures

a_motley_fool
2008-05-15 01:05 pm UTC (link)

I don't know what type of camera you're using but if I had to guess you're using something small and it doesn't have the ability to take pictures at night (at least not good ones).

If you were taking pictures at night with a camera that uses film you would (unless it was very bright for the night) open up the aperture of the camera and use the lowest ISO you could (and a tripod and a slow shutter speed).

Digital cameras don't have film and most don't have very good lens systems so you're relying on your camera's ISO sensors to deal with the light situation. To take better pictures at night you need to fiddle with your camera's ISO and get a tripod. But to take something nice you'll need a better camera. Either a big dslr or something like the Canon PowerShot SD850, or the Fujifilm Finepix F100fd 12MP (which was supposed to be the second coming of the small, digital camera for low light conditions, but I haven't heard good things). Both these smaller cameras can take pictures in low light conditions, neither will do as good of a job as a bigger dslr.

You might be able to fix the pictures posted above with photoshop but they'll probably have a lot of noise no matter what you do.

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Re: night pictures

phanatic
2008-05-15 06:20 pm UTC (link)

ut to take something nice you'll need a better camera.

No, he won't. He can take perfectly decent pictures at night with a P&S. The small sensor on a P&S will look crappy if he tries pushing the ISO too far, but if he's using a tripod, he doesn't have to do that. The problem I'm seeing with the above photos (technically, not artistically), is that they're underexposed.

That's an S9 at night, .5 second exposure. He might be able to hand-hold that, depending on the zoom.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	what phanatic said herbaliser 2008-05-15 06:37 pm UTC (link)
	P&S .5s as well. (Reply to this)(Parent)

whysyn
2008-05-15 01:51 pm UTC (link)

Also, try disabling the flash... depending on the camera's programming, it likely uses a fixed exposure length with the flash, so disabling it should enable longer exposures. If true, combine with a tripod to prevent blur.

If you can set them anywhere: wider aperture (lower f number), higher ISO number, and slower shutter speed. You will definitely need a tripod at that point. Again, most camera will always use the same shutter speed when flash is on.

Good luck!

(Reply to this)

a_motley_fool
2008-05-15 03:19 pm UTC (link)

I just realized you posted that your camera is a Nikon Coolpix S9. It isn't going to take good night pictures (or good motion pictures or anything requiring depth of field), you can stop trying. This camera is intended to be light and easy to use. If you look at your camera's specifications the highest ISO it will go is 400. This is fine for "normal" light conditions but anything else will not give you optimal results.

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phanatic
2008-05-15 06:28 pm UTC (link)

Bwuh? ISO by itself doesn't matter; if you can hold the camera steady (tripod, brick wall, whatever), you set the ISO to the slowest setting and take your shots, just slow down the shutter accordingly. That's just fine if he's just trying to get a shot of the city at night, unless the buildings and light poles are swaying in the breeze or something.

That's an ISO *50* shot at night. My camera won't even go that slow. Back in the days of film, people could take great shots with Velvia ISO 50 at night. You just need a longer shutter speed.

ikilled007, P&S cameras have several disadvantages. One, they're slow to respond to pressing the shutter release. This is because of their contrast-based autofocus, and because of their need to switch modes from live-preview to taking-the-picture - this makes them poor choices for taking action shots. Two, they have tiny sensors that yield huge amounts of noise at higher ISOs. Three, very tiny lenses make getting any kind of selective depth-of-field not really a possibility.

Aside from those limitations you can take perfectly good photos with them. It's not about your camera.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	munchkin62 2008-05-15 05:02 pm UTC (link)
	Both are nice cars. My Focus is so jealous, really. (Reply to this)

	adrienned 2008-05-15 05:55 pm UTC (link)
	What an absolutely beautiful and perfect place to live. You must wake up everyday feeling extremely thankful. I think we all want to move there, thanks to your posts :) Great cars! (Reply to this)

	fitfool 2008-05-15 11:19 pm UTC (link)
	sweet car! (Reply to this)

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