HP M407 - Problems taking pictures in the dark areas.

Hmm, not many people going through there...but oh well.

Hey all,

I have a HP Photosmart M407. It is a good camera but I have lots of problems taking pictures in a dark room or night time with lights. Like I went to RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY CIRCUS last night, and I took some awlful pictures. most of them were them are too dark or blurry.

Any tips on getting better shots in a dark areas.

Here are the features that I can control.

Flash - Auto Flash, Red-Eye, Flash On, Flash Off, and Night
Mode - Auto Mode, Macro, Fast Shot, Action, Portrait, Landscape, and Beach & Snow.
EV Compensation - -2.0-2.0 (Basically means the lower the EV Compensation, then the image will be darker, and the opposite way when its higher, lighter.)
White Balance - Auto, Sun, Shade, Tungsten. and Fluoresent.
ISO Speed - ISO 100, ISO 200, and ISO 400.

Or should I purchase another camera?

TIA.

JC

 

HP is not known for the best image quality. However, most, if not all, point and shoot cameras would not perform well at a circus. The limited range of the flash can't illuminate things well enough and the tiny sensors can take in light quick enough to take great pictures.

It will take a lot of experimenting to figure out how you camera will work best in those conditions. You can try with and without flash (but things will probably be blurry. You don't have a "night" mode to try. You could limit the ISO to a certain, low number, like 100 or 200. The camera is probably using an auto setting for ISO, so is probably increasing the ISO and making pictures grainy.

A new camera *may* help, but it won't be perfect and it will take a lot of perfecting. How often do you take pictures at the circus?

 

Yeah, I was playing the setting durring the show. Almost all were awlful, but few were ok. Probably I need to buy/trade my digital camera. Both of my brother and my sister have a Canon Powershot camera and their pictures are quite good. I will post another thread conserning about buying another camera. Thanks for the help, Ben.

JC

 

The Powershots are great cameras. A large part of owning a point and shoot is knowing the limitations of the camera and knowing what the camera can and can't do. Also, learning what settings work best for various situations can take some time. For instance, your HP probably takes fine pictures outside - it may even take good portraits, but filling a large, dim area with flash is definitely not a strong point in point and shoot cameras. Some cameras can still produce decent results though. In my opinion, what sets the "good" cameras from the "less than good" ones is that the good ones produce good images more consistently over a wide range of situations.

 

Hm, thanks for such knowledgable info, Ben. I appreciated.

JC

 

Same here, my HP camera would never even take pictures in the dark. Looking at getting a new Kodak now.

 

i had the same problem with a canon rebel xt..what i did is change the lock on the exposure..go through your settings or functions and set it to no lock AE (auto exposure)

 

HP doesn't make digital cameras anymore and hasn't for awhile.