Night photography on a canon powershot s5 is?

so far most pictures are grainy and if I'm not doing a skyline just seem very poor quality. low or auto ISO seems to help when doing a skyline but i prefer night portraits of people and small objects in natural light no flash. people in night lighting (bar, streetlights ect) seem to have an orange "aura" and tho its a cool effect i would like to get rid of it. night skies in town with the regular street lights ect are soo grainy with fuzzies all over. I absolutly hate the quality. I have seen people take pictures of the moon where you see all detail, how can I do these types of things and not look like im using a camera phone? so far my kodak handheld takes better night pictures and thats just a shame.

Tripod, iso100, F8, 2-15 seconds will do it. The auras are due to large apertures, with f8 you will get a more "star burst" effect. Use a WB balance of say 3200k to remove the orange cast, I prefer 5600k for night shots, try that also maybe.

If you dont have the control on your camera to do the above just use a tripod and shoot lots of shots.

for freezing action or people shots use flash

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Well, the things you can do to make better night photos, ie., slow shutter speed are screwed if your trying to capture action. Try a flash, camera on a tripod. It isnt natural lighting, but you cant have everything.

If you set ISO too high, you get noise, so keep ISO low, around 200-400. You have to give some, to get some. You have to have light to get photos.

if your subject is static use a low ISO and a looooooong shutterspead - think of the sensor soaking up light like sponge soaks up water - the longer you leave it in the water the more water it soaks up.

the more light you expose to the sensor the more information you add to the picture. you get the low quality because there's not enough information for the image to be clear

That camera is not really built for low light photography. If you look at the 20D and above they have features for processing low light and time exposure images.

To change the orange aura look at your white balance settings, should be one for tungsten/indoor lighting.

The wonderful pictures of the moon with such detail are done by "stacking"

Here is an example
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7969902@N07...

So don't blame your poor camera for that.

there's a lot to your question. first of all, taking images of the moon is very different than taking pictures in low light. The answer really depends on how much light is available, assessing the exposure, adjusting the ISO, and keeping the camera as still as possible. moving subjects in low light create a challenge for your camera since the sensor is pretty small.

also, when you say your kodak takes better photos, is the flash on or off? I'd bet that you have the flash on with that camera.