I decided to challenge myself some and shoot a series of night shots for my mother-in-law all using the compact camera she was using. It is a Canon A720. It was nice enough, though I am not a big fan of compact cameras.
I will say more later, but the first and most important clues I have to make this work are these. One, turn the flash off. Two, turn the ISO (film speed) up. And third, if you dare (and if you want good shots out of these little machines), go to all manual settings.
I can see a lot of folks doing steps one and two, but the manual settings are a bit difficult for most…otherwise, you would be using an SLR camera. So, for now, let’s keep it simple: turn the flash off and turn the ISO up to 800 or so.
The flash does not need to be on anyway, because it will never be able to light subjects so far away. As for the ISO, the one negative is the grain. If you look at this shot, there is some grain, but it is not too bad. The photo is certainly better than if I had tried it at ISO 200…it would have been a strange, blurry mess.
More later on my night point-and-shoot experience…
