Problems with long shutter speed when it gets dark?

[Horoscope Fish]

\Re: Problems with long shutter speed when it gets dark?

O.K. in future I will deselect Long Exposure Noise Reduction. It takes too long to process the image even with a 95MB Extreme Pro memory card.

This is because it has nothing to do with writing the image to your memory card. The processing time is doubled because your camera is processing two images. Once the images are processed, and combined into the final image, then the final resultant image is written to the memory card and your camera is free to take another picture.
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It seems logical that manual focus is preferential to auto focus in low light conditions. I'll report the results of my next sun down expedition.

Nothing wrong with mastering the Dark Art of manual focus but you're going to find that focusing in low light is difficult for you just as it is for your camera, and for the same reason: low light means low contrast. This is why I suggest bringing a Mag-Lite along to "light up" your subject; the Mag-Light is just a huge version of your camera's Auto Focus Assist Lamp. Once your Auto Focus gets a lock on the illuminated subject, you turn off both the Auto Focus and your Mag-Lite because focus is now correct for the shot, and will stay correct for that shot, until you move the manual focusing ring on the lens or re-enable Auto Focus.


Cheers!