Jupiter Inlet, FL : Digital Camera Night Shots
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About the long Exposures: The Olympus C-5050 lets you take pictures at up to 16 seconds exposure. Noise reduction can also be enable which essentially subtracts the dark image. What it does to reduce noise, is to take a second picture immediately after the first picture is taken, with the same exposure settings, except, this time the shutter never opens. The resulting image is called the dark image, which can look quite colorful actually, depending on how noisy the sensors are. Since the noise of a sensor at a given temperature is pretty constant, subtracting this image from the original image results in a final image with a lot less visible noise in the image. This is what's done for each 16 second exposure, and in fact, since 2 pictures are taken, the whole process takes up to 40 seconds.
Image Stacking: On dark nights with little light, a 16 second exposure is not long enough to obtain a decent image. Taking multiple images, and then summing them up, can in effect, let you extend the exposure time of the image. VM95 software (from EVS) lets you stack up to 18 images, and the results are often astounding.