twinkly
I was in the Distillery District this evening to pick up prints at Pikto when I took these photos with my phone. A minute later I spotted a group of ladies trying to get a photo of themselves — presumably with the twinkly lights in the background — but had given up by the time I reached them. Hurrying a little, with my prints in one hand and a freshly-poured coffee from Balzac’s in the other, I caught up to the group and offered to take their photo.
They responded with an enthusiastic “Yes, please!”, so I assembled them while one lady gave me her Canon point-and-shoot. I showed her how to take the camera off Auto and find the Night Portrait setting. Then I took their photo and showed them the results on the LCD.
My explanation for what the camera was doing in this setting was completely drowned out by squeals of delight. I don’t think they listened to a word I said after that, they were too excited over how the the ambient light appeared in the photo.
I had to laugh. It’s OK that they weren’t listening, it’s enough that they were excited over being able to take night photos.
“I’ve never figured out what my camera can do,” the owner said.
“Well, now you know one more setting… and you’re going to use it, right?”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve showed people how to use the night settings in their point-and-shoots. Whenever I walk home past the CN Tower, Chinatown, or City Hall. When I’m visiting other cities. When I’m in restaurants. It’s pretty frequent. And practically any camera over $20 has this feature, yet it has remained mysterious and invisible to most point-and-shooters. I’m oh-so-slowly working to change that, one group shot at a time.
not bad for a phone camera
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