Advice: Good Night Picture Camera ($200-400)

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wjk

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The Brief:

-Need Camera
-Relatively cheap ($200-400) NEW
-Good day AND night pictures


Alright, so I know they're a lot of camera gurus in here and I need advice for a camera. Its going to be a B-day present for my GF and it will replace her old camera. I'm not really looking to get an SLR mainly because of the price, but its also important that its somewhat compact so its easy to carry on trips.

The biggest thing I'm looking for is for it to be able to take good night photos. Right now she has a Cannon SD750 from about 4-5 years ago and it takes decent day photos, but just horrible night shots! For some reason at least half our photos tend to be at night time so it would be nice if the camera take some good shots.

Any recommendations would be great! Or if you could simply point me to what type of specs I should be looking for I'd be thankful. I'm guessing it will be a point and shoot camera, but who knows.

Here's here old camera...

Canon-SD750-1.jpg
 
Silver2003Cobra

Silver2003Cobra

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to take any type of night photo your going to either need a HUGE flash (the onboard camera flash just doesn't cut it, unless your taking photos in a small room) even then you'll be surprised how little a flash lights stuff up, or better yet a tripod.. I've taken photos with my Canon 60D, with long exposure in full moon light that it's very hard to tell that they are not taken at noon on a bright day.. (30 sec exposure with full apature open)

oh, if you can get one that has manual controls it's quite handy as well..
 
CalcVictim

CalcVictim

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Silver2003Cobra said:
to take any type of night photo your going to either need a HUGE flash (the onboard camera flash just doesn't cut it, unless your taking photos in a small room) even then you'll be surprised how little a flash lights stuff up, or better yet a tripod.. I've taken photos with my Canon 60D, with long exposure in full moon light that it's very hard to tell that they are not taken at noon on a bright day.. (30 sec exposure with full apature open)

oh, if you can get one that has manual controls it's quite handy as well..
Click to expand...

I doubt he is talking about taking pictures in "bulb" mode, more likely just regular pics at night. For that flash+OIS+high iso should suffice. Tripod off course is best but most people who use a P&S do not use a tripod.
 
Planter

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CalcVictim said:
I doubt he is talking about taking pictures in "bulb" mode, more likely just regular pics at night. For that flash+OIS+high iso should suffice. Tripod off course is best but most people who use a P&S do not use a tripod.
Click to expand...

you only need to run a high iso if you have crappy lenses.

any f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2 f/2.8 lens on a tripod with a long exposure will give him pretty good light with anything under 800 ISO. higher than that, he'll have grain/digital noise in all his photos and they'll come out lookin' like ass.

but it also does matter on what he's photographing as well.
 

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