There are some things you take for granted with a point-and-shoot, one of them is the bulb mode.  Rather, a point-and-shoot normally would not have a bulb mode.  You’d just have to grin and bear it and forget the possibilities of shooting with the shutter open and under your control for however long you want.

Thinking about it, the bulb mode is either an idiosynchratic work-around or a padoxical camera feature.  It is the ultimate in manual controls.  You have the camera taking a single picture of a subject for as long as you’re pressing the button.  And yes, you might want to have the camera on a tripod and using a shutter release cable.  I have no idea what possible subject might be to warrant a camera not on a tripod while on bulb mode.  Although I sometimes think that there might be a picture out there worth taking where you need to be holding the camera and keeping a finger pressed on the shutter button.

For the most part, I’ve used the bulb mode in night shots without a flash.  For instance, a skyline at night with all the neon signs, or a shot of a busy highway at night, these would be great for this technique.  I also use this very frequently during New Year’s celebration when taking pictures of roman candles or sparklers.  It’s fun to take a shot of a kid spelling his name using sparklers.  In such cases, I don’t really care what the aperture setting is.

Too bad that bulb mode has been replaced by “night mode” in point-and-shoot cameras.