Can I overide a Canon EOS 450D DSLR to take pictures in the dark?

If it’s so dark your camera won’t pick it up, then what the fuck are you trying to take a picture of?

use the p setting, set time and apperture manually. select manual focus. that should work.

Use delay timer and a tripod to avoid shake, since your shutter times will be long, I reckon.

I would shoot in manual mode and do a 200 iso with a 30 second exposure. And what are you trying to take a photo of?

Also withthe lowest aperture you can get.

Well I have tried to take pictures of things that put off light but I am not close enough for my camera to pick it up. I tried taking a picture of a building that was lit up from the beach before and it wouldn’t work. I asked because I want to take a picture of the meteor shower tonight. Plus just for future reference. Thanks for the tips.

If you need to on M setting. Go to the exposure “Blub” that mean once you hit it the shutter will stay open as long as you want it to. You’ll need to then push the shutter button again to end the exposure. It works very well for taking near black shots of like stars and such. I would recommend a tripod when doing that as well.

The camera only won’t make a picture if it’s in auto focus mode and none of the AF points register a certain amount of contrast, this can happen with less light.
Whatever aperture you set, make sure the lens is F2.8 or lower, only that will enable cross focus on XXXD series EOS camera’s.

Find an edge with contrast, point an AF-point on it, focus with flash on, lock the focus to manual, enable the self-shooter function (don’t know the term in English!).. but that should work. In case of the meteors, you can AF on a star or turn the focus to manual and screw it a milimeter off infinate.

@willbrawn Setting a low aperture would only blur the stars, it’s about the lens’ aperture. Also the bulb exposure is only handy if you want to time the lightning yourself, it doesn’t have anything to do with his camera not making pictures. And iso200 + 30sec is also not to great with stars, crank up that iso cause with 30sec stars will noticably have moved in the picture.

I would agree with the idea that it’s an autofocus problem—most DSLR’s won’t take photos if they can’t find anything to focus on. Set it to manual focus, and go from there.

For the perseids, go with a tripod, use a manual 30 second shutter, and set your aperture a stop down from the largest possible. You’re not likely to be able to catch a meteor shooting after you see it.

This one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benpeoples/3069525602/in/photostream/ was SUPER bright, and I caught it at f/4 at 800ISO on a 30 second exposure.

Have you ever thought of checking the INSTRUCTIONS?!?!

Notably, check out page 162 regarding “AF Failure”.

Bulb mode is discussed on page 75

(Found the manual here: http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/0300000933/EOSRXSi-EOS450D_EN.pdf if yours isn’t handy)

=)

@bpeoples Thanks. I have no idea where my manual is.

@everyone else, Thanks for all the answers.

@sweetteaindahouse Yeah, I usually haven’t a clue where mine is after I’ve had the camera for a month…