some questions on digi cam night shots and flash

[laughingman]

i know that compact digi cam with the built in flash dont take good night shots....but how bad is it? or totally not usable? for eg like taking photos of christmas light-up at orchard is ok? need some info on this b4 i decide on a cam.
i'm considering on s30 and nikon 995.
any users of the two cam to give opion?

 

[mEc]

Originally posted by laughingman
i know that compact digi cam with the built in flash dont take good night shots....but how bad is it? or totally not usable? for eg like taking photos of christmas light-up at orchard is ok? need some info on this b4 i decide on a cam.
i'm considering on s30 and nikon 995.
any users of the two cam to give opion?

to take night shots, your cam must have long exposure setting; the shutter speed must be slow.
the flash doesnt make the difference in night shots no matter how powerful it is.

 

[YSLee]

A couple of spotlights may help.

If you think about it, for the flash to be effective, it has to light up the area first, correct? That tiny flash doesn't have that kind of power to do that!

 

[mpenza]

if you want to take night shots of say X'mas lights or City lights, you would want to turn off your flash and lengthen the exposure time.

 

[ziploc]

And if you want to take people in the pic together with the nite scene background, you need to use slow sync flash.