down under and clueless

hello world this is the first time i have used this site. so forgive my if it's no good.
at the moment i'm down under in oz from the uk, i have just bought myself a olympus e-410 digital camera, tripod and remote control.
the problem i have is i would like to take some night shots of the stars down here because the sky is so amazing but the manual that came with the camera is all dutch to me. not that theres anything wrong with the dutch.
can anyone help me as i'm of to spend some time in the bush tomorrow and there will be no light pollution. please help if you can.

Hi Ron,

Not familiar with that particular camera, but you are probably only going to get good night shots with it if it's a DSLR (camera with interchangeable lenses) If so, put your camera on Manual, set the focus to manual and focus to infinity, set the aperature wide open, and put the shutter to Bulb. You can take long exposures of the stars that way. It will eat your battery though. If your camera is a smaller, compact kind, then turn your flash off, set it to "mountain/scenic mode," and hope for the best. Good luck!

You don't need the remote and can use the cameras timer. You want to open your aperature as much as you can, probably 3.5 and also set your shutter speed up to a minute and turn on noise reduction. Try 400 or 800 ISO as well. Set the cameras timer to 2secs and also manual focus on the stars. The camera will have a hard time focusing in low light. DSLRs are not really good at extremly long shutter speeds so if you want star trails you might look at getting a film camera. Here are online instructions on the 410. If you have problems feel free to post them in the Olympus forum or just PM me. Thanks.

http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_se...ls.asp?id=1294

how long are you down under for?

if you are in sydney send me a pm and i will show you how it is done! incidentally i am of dutch extraction, but i don't read it! you could say it is double dutch to me!