Cambodia Trip - Manual Mode First Try (Night Photography)

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My Cambodia trip wasn't about temple ruins after all, a visit to the bar street was as appealing enough. We went there for two nights straight. Night time is the perfect time to stroll around, minus the hot sun and low humidity. Talking about landscape night photography, here are my own S95 tips:
  1. Make sure the camera is secure and as still as possible by using a tripod (the small size of S95 will come in handy when you don't have a tripod around since it can basically be placed on any flat surfaces)
  2. Turn off the image stabilization
  3. Use the Manual Mode and shoot RAW if memory card permits
  4. Choose a small aperture (f8.0 if not underexposed)
  5. Select a slower shutter speed (I found that the maximum 15sec of S95 is quite limited especially when the background is dark)
  6. Check the exposure level from bottom right of the LCD screen
  7. Increase the ISO settings if needed (take note of noise and attempt to keep the ISO under 400 to get reasonably clean shots)
  8. Use the self-timer (2 or 3sec)
  9. Consider other light sources (a lamp or a dimmed light that you can use)
  10. Change to Manual Focus if the camera fails to focus
  11. Wait patiently for the camera to compose the shot
Bar Street at Full Moon (ISO 80, Shutter 8sec and Aperture f8.0)
Through my mistakes, I realized that choosing the right time to shoot is also important. Too early and the lights won't be that fascinating. Shooting too late at night and the background will be too dark (appears blank). Another thing I find interesting is to utilize other light sources and reflectors in the surroundings. Let it be water surfaces, white cloth or granite walls.

Street view after a quick shower.
Many times we also need to shoot other subjects under low-light condition. Using a slow shutter speed won't be possible as the subject might be blurred. For this, I always use Av-Mode or P-Mode and trying to limit the  ISO at 500 maximum. Turning the image stabilizer on would help as well. If it's really too dark, I would even go up to f2.0 or just fire the flash (cover the flash with a tissue would help if the image is seriously overexposed). I haven't experienced with the Low-Light Mode as some users claimed that the result is too noisy.

Using flash on drunk faces.

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