Eureka Moment

I've tried many times to take photos in very low light settings and have always been frustrated.

A power cut arrived so we wandered outside and once my eyes had got used to the dark ... brilliant stars all over the sky. One shooting star to boot.

I thought, let's have one more try at taking a photo of the stars. Camera on! Change  the ISO setting to its maximum 1600. Point! Shoot! 

Nothing :(

I put the camera away and went back to star gazing. Then i had my eureka moment ... the camera can't take a photo because it is set to automatic by default. So, I thought, if I set it to manual focus maybe it will do as I want!

I went and got the camera again. Changed the focus setting to manual. I already had the shutter open for 5 seconds but I increased that to 6 seconds.

I pressed the shutter release button and after a delay of a second it took a photo ... of the stars!

I did it! Eureka!

The power cut is still with us so i can't post any photos here yet but I will as soon as I can.

UPDATE: here are three photos for you ... sorry but very low resolution although the originals are 5 Mb in size.

DW