# EOS M Hand Held Night Mode - how does it work?



## MrFotoFool (Aug 17, 2013)

Got the M on the 299 special and used it for snapshots on a recent Texas trip. Was using the hand held night mode on the Riverwalk and it works amazingly well. Just curious what exactly it does. I know it takes four shots in a row.

But surely it is not combining them, is it? I mean the boat was moving (albeit slowly), yet it is sharp in the photo as are all the people. Does the camera just keep the sharpest of the four in the sequence?


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 17, 2013)

Here is some info I pulled from a review.

" If you are willing to put a little thought into it, the Canon EOS M has a night mode that shoots four consecutive photos with different exposure (no tripod required) and compose a final frame using an HDR technique. It takes about 1 second to snap all four shots, so this works best for static scenes (moving objects will make things blurry), but I’ve been impressed with what the EOS was able to do. I took a (handheld) photo of a small cardboard box in a dark corner of a room and the Canon EOS M has done a great job at composing all four shots into one clear and bright photo. The brightness was much better than what my eyes perceived."

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/02/canon-eos-m-review/



The software will align the 4 images as best it can when it combines them. In your case, it seems to have worked exceptionally well.


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## MrFotoFool (Aug 17, 2013)

The M does have a separate mode for (day) strong backlit scenes that uses HDR to combine three shots. I tried using this with a subject with only one part moving and the movement showed awfully. The handheld night mode, however, does not reveal any movement so I do not understand how it can be using a similar HDR method. I really think something else is going on here. My quick Google search on the topic did not reveal anything useful.


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## Cb33 (Aug 17, 2013)

This is just conjecture, but I think it is taking four quick high ISO shots and combining them to reduce noise.


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## MrFotoFool (Aug 18, 2013)

I did notice on the EXIF that the ISO is very high, 12,800.


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## comsense (Aug 19, 2013)

Cb33 said:


> This is just conjecture, but I think it is taking four quick high ISO shots and combining them to reduce noise.


Spot on. Since(if) noise is random, averaging of several frames results in reduced noise.


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## comsense (Aug 19, 2013)

comsense said:


> Cb33 said:
> 
> 
> > This is just conjecture, but I think it is taking four quick high ISO shots and combining them to reduce noise.
> ...


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