I am a camera idiot

After more than 2 years of using my Minolta Dimage Xt, i finally found out why my night shots are always underexposed. I used to blame my camera for its poor low light shots but it's actually me to blame for it. See these pictures as prove.


(Exposure 0) I've been taking these sort of pictures in low light conditions since i bought my camera in early 2004.


(Exposure +2) When i should be taking these kind of photos instead. Both shots are taken from the same place and same lighting condition.

There is a drastic difference between the 1st picture and the 2nd picture in terms of exposure. After simply setting the exposure to +2, i got the much improved 2nd picture. I can also set my camera's iso setting up to 400 as well.

Tested my camera for these settings after heavy researching for a new camera. When i saw the sample pictures taken from Canon Ixus 800 IS (just released) and Canon Ixus S410 (released 2 yrs ago) (both are highly recommended), i found out that both of their image quality is very good and about the same. I was thinking why the quality of the images since 2 years ago have not changed that much. I thought of testing my camera next and viola...

I guess i don't need a new camera anymore.