Good camera for night/dark conditions

[teigyr]

This is a strange one but I thought I'd throw it out there :D

We have a neighbor that has some questionable activities. Unfortunately, every time we get him on something (mostly car ranching and performing mechanic duties on a public street) he scales back and changes his tactics. Right now the people most interested in him are code enforcement but...now he has changed his "working on cars" time to after dark. Code enforcement would like pictures and our police is SO slow to respond (and it's not an emergency) there's no point in calling while it's going on.

My camera phone is horrible at night. We tried walking by with me trying to take a picture but pretending like I was text-messaging. My digital camera has a flash and without it, it's worthless. He is usually under a streetlight but we're too far away and the lighting conditions are too bad.

I have heard of some cameras doing really well in low light conditions. I'm doing some websearching and am seeing all the spy stuff but we'd really like just a good camera with that capability. Does anyone have experience with their camera and in that, did they notice really good pictures at night?!!!

Seriously, we have started thinking of hiring a private investigator as a last resort. It's disruptive, the cars leak stuff all over the street, and we are sure he's doing something illicit. When we had a nice police officer (once!) it turns out one of the cars had been reported scrapped. It makes me long for a small town where the police have time to deal with this stuff.

Sorry this is so long! But it explains why we need no/low light and no flash :)

[mountainchick]

With an SLR camera you can take pictures in low light with no flash, but it requires a tripod, and usually a remote or cable release (you can also use the self timer if it has one) to keep the picture from coming out without being blurred.

Some point and shoot cameras might have the capibility, but you want to be able to slow the shutter speed while the aperature is opened wider (I hope I'm explaining this right, I'm only an amateur photographer).

I don't have any advice other than that, but maybe it would be worth hiring the PI if he might be doing illegal things?? It might keep you from getting deeper involved if you don't know the extent of what he's doing. Though it sounds like just the car stuff...

Good luck!! Let us know how it progresses!

[teigyr]

Now I know a bit more of what I'm looking for.

I don't think he's doing crime as in scary crime but we've caught him selling tires in front of our house (he lives in a neighboring apartment building) and I'd say there's a bit of vehicle fraud going on. It's trashing our quiet little neighborhood and we are tired of it. We talked about going the PI route but since we need a camera anyway, well, I think we'll try that too!

Our next option is to contact the apartment owner. One would think he wouldn't want Code Enforcement around too much...it's an old and rundown building.

It was kind of entertaining to watch us skulk around trying to sneakily take pictures! We are not the subtle sorts!

Thanks again :D

[mimitabby]

This is it:

Fujifilm FinePix F30

I want one!

[teigyr]

Mimi, I think you did it!!! I read all sorts of reviews on it and it seems perfect. It isn't even that expensive :D

I think it's time to go shopping!