Topic: How is this possible ? (Nikon D80)

[Tye]

This is a picture I took in the back country of Yosemite at night. The sun had already set and was very dark when I took it. We had a campfire behind the tripod and the moon was not bright at the time.
 How can it pick up the colors so well?  It looks like it was taken at 10 am




Equipment Make             Nikon Corporation
Camera Model                Nikon D80
Creation Software          Version 1.00
Color Reprensentaion      sRGB
Flash Mode                    No Flash
Focal Length                  28mm
F-Number                      F/3.5
Exposure Time               28 sec
Metering Mode               Pattern
Light Source                   Unknown
Exposure Program           Normal
Exposure Compensation   +5 step
Date Picture Taken         9/13/2008 7:31 PM

[flipp]

Two reasons it looks like daylight:

1) 28 sec exposure
and
2) the sun had barely set, been down about 20 minutes which means twilight was still fairly bright (Reno was as close as I could get to Yosemite - http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=599&month=9&year=2008&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1

< EXIF info from your pic
Orientation of image:  1
File change date and time:  2008:09:13 19:31:35
Image input equipment manufacturer:  NIKON CORPORATION
Image input equipment model:  NIKON D80
Software used:  Ver.1.00
Exposure time:  28
F number:  3.5
Exposure program:  2
Exposure bias:  5
Maximum lens aperture:  3.6
Metering mode:  5
Light source:  0
Flash:  0
Lens focal length:  28
Sensing method:  2
Custom rendered:  1
Exposure mode:  0
White balance:  1
Digital zoom ratio:  1
Focal length in 35 mm film:  42
Scene capture type:  0
Gain control:  2
Contrast:  2
Saturation:  2
Sharpness:  2
Subject distance range:  0 >

[Tye]

This one is taken 4 minutes later




Equipment Make             Nikon Corporation
Camera Model                Nikon D80
Creation Software          Version 1.00
Color Reprensentaion      sRGB
Flash Mode                    No Flash
Focal Length                  80mm
F-Number                      F/5.6
Exposure Time               25 sec
Metering Mode               Pattern
Light Source                   Unknown
Exposure Program           Normal
Exposure Compensation   +5 step
Date Picture Taken         9/13/2008 7:35 PM

[flipp]

28mm f3.5 vs 80mm f5.6

the former lets a lot more light reach the sensor which has a much greater effect than the additional three seconds exposure time or the four minutes further into twilight

[Tye]

I can understand how twilight and the exposure can make a huge difference but I am still baffled that it could pick up so much detail and color.   Notice how it picked up the diffrent tones of brown on the mountain lower right that is about a mile away how can it determine what color it was from that distance.
 Is this perhaps due to the electronics in the D80 or could this be done with most cameras?