Olympus C-720 Night Shots

[kevan_ray]

Ok basicly i'm a beginner at this. I've seen some people take

spectacular pictures of their cars at night with no flash and

basiclly i wanna learn how to do the same thing. I have a Olympus C-

720 digital camera 8x ultra zoom. Right now i'm just learning about

the ISO/apature/shutter speed/and what not. I can try and take a

picture right now but it just comes out all fuzzy and blurry and

really bad looking. I'm using a Albinar tripod if that means anything

to anyone. Metal and fully functional. Very nice tripod IMO. But even

with a low shutter speed and a tripod it still comes out blurry. I

dont really know what else to ask so can someone point me in the

right direction and get me to the point where i can take some

beautiful night shots of my car?

[aonsen]

You speak of these beautiful night shots of cars, but it's really difficult for us to know exactly what look you're after. Can you post a few links to some of these pictures, and I'm sure we can give you some advice on how to achieve that specific look.

 

Not knowing how long an exposure you're using, it's hard to say what causes the blur. Normally, with a tripod you should get rock solid pictures (given that there is no wind blowing and camera shaking due to that).

One word of advice I can give you is to not use the optical zoom on the camera. By being zoomed all the way out, you'll allow more light to enter the sensor, which should give you slightly better pictures. If you really need to be closer, move the camera closer to the subject.

[kevan_ray]

ok here you go, you can kind of get an idea of what i'm thinking about.

 

http://www.6gc.net/images/member_photos/1_10.jpg

[kevan_ray]

I got it! Went tonight and took some. I still can't figure out what the little dots are in all the pictures. They are in the same spot everytime so i know it's the camera and not the air or place i took it. Maybe the lens or something digitally wrong that is happening.

 

If you'd like to see them go here:

 

http://www.st-celica.com/images/Celica/Celica01.jpg

http://www.st-celica.com/images/Celica/Celica02.jpg

http://www.st-celica.com/images/Celica/Celica03.jpg

http://www.st-celica.com/images/Celica/Celica04.jpg

http://www.st-celica.com/images/Celica/Celica05.jpg

 

I also took some beautiful shots of Knoxville:

 

http://www.st-celica.com/images/Knoxville/Knoxville01.jpg

http://www.st-celica.com/images/Knoxville/Knoxville02.jpg

http://www.st-celica.com/images/Knoxville/Knoxville03.jpg

http://www.st-celica.com/images/Knoxville/Knoxville04.jpg

http://www.st-celica.com/images/Knoxville/Knoxville05.jpg

[aonsen]

I'm glad to hear you've got the hang of it...

It just goes to proove to everyone that you have to take pictures (lots of them) to get a feel for this photography thing. It took me a long time to figure that out.<br>

: )<br>

As for the little dots you keep seeing, they are called Hot Pixels.

Every digital camera has this problem (some to a lesser extent then others) since it has to do with how the image sensor captures the image at long exposures.

There are ways to eliminate them. Since they always appear in same spot, the easiest method is to take a picture in total darkness (do that by leaving the lens cap on) and you'll only get the dots. Using photoshop, you should be able to subtract the dots from the actual image.<br>

There is also software out there that will do this subtraction for you with better results.

Do a search for Hot Pixels, and you should be able to get much more info on this topic.

[greg_tomas]

I agree. The dots are hot pixels...or also called blown pixels. Every camera manufacturer has a number of blown pixels that are within exceptable range for the model of camera. I've had Kodak service look at one of my cameras a couple of times...they have a machine/sw that maps the blown pixels and turns them off. It doesn't work too great since I still end up with them.

[court_cuba]

My C740 had the pixel problem. Every picture had a noticeable white dot in it. Pixel mapping did not fix it. Olympus replaced the CCD under warranty. Despite my disappointment with the original problem, Olympus service was excellent - they responded to e-mails quickly and I received my fixed camera about a week after I sent it in.