P850-Night Time

[ziggyacres]

OK Everyone I am really ticked off at Kodak right now

I am an avid Nascar fan and of course sit high in the stands for the races. I bought the Kodak P850 almost a year ago and am very dissapointed with it right now. Whenever I go to a night race I am unable to take pictures, they are all blurred and very dark.

Does anyone know a setting that I can use to be able to take pictures at night. My day pictures are absolutly gorgeous, couldn't ask for better, but I really need the night race photos.

Please tell me how to do it as I will save it as a custom setting or wil buying the extra flash help? What can I do to be able to get night shots at the races. I am even taking pictures while the cars are sitting steal. they are not blurred, but dark as could be.


What can I do???

Thanks in advance

[Morag2]

Well, the Kodak P850 really isn't an ideal night camera.

What you should do is go into manual mode, open the aperature all the way up and bump up the ISO. (ISO 400 gives you noisy shots, but bright). Then use the slowest shutter speed you can. However, too slow and you will get blurred cars. I would recommened no slower than 1/50th, even 1/200 would be preferrable, but that probably won't work at night.

The flash is useless if you're at a distance. After about 10 feet, it doesn't help. The external flash is a bit better, but still not if you're shooting at full or almost full zoom.

Were you shooting on Auto mode? What probably happened is that it reached the max ISO it can use it Auto, which is lower than the max in manual and then slowed down your shutter speed. This means that without a tripod, your shots are going to be blurry.

I have taken some decent shots at night, but of a moving subject, it will be very difficult. For still subjects, you can use a tripod and just use a slow shutter speed.

Hope that helped some,
Keilan