What compact camera with low noise for indoor shots mainly

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krishcanag

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Hello

I am new here

I tried the IXUS 110IS and the F200EXR, both produced good outdoor shots, indoors the cannon was just a little better and when the fuji was put in EXR mode (goes to SN) indoors it produced an even worse picture than when it was in auto mode!!!.

I am now so confused, on paper and by reviews due to sensor size the fuji should have been much better!!!

I no longer trust any review, is there anyone which can point me to the best indoor camera for around £200?

thanks

krishan

PS. I can post both pictures if anyone likes.
 
Welcome to TP :)

I too would have thought the Fuji F200 would be best, though I've never used one. Are you sure you had it set correctly for your test? Sorry to question this, but the reviews say it's quite good in this respect (for a compact).

Panasonic LX3 has best low light performance, helped by its f/2 lens. Though all compacts are notoriously poor in this area.
 
Compact cameras are notorious for poor low light performance but sometimes you can set things up to improve your results a bit. I don't have any experience of the cameras you've mentioned but I think it would be helpful to see a shot from each of yours so that we can see whether your expectations are reasonable and your settings as good as they might be. Please keep EXIF information intact within the image files.

By way of example, here is an indoor party shot from my four year old Sony DSC-P200. It's not great but it is as good as I would expect from such a camera. (no edits except a small crop)...

20070602_215859_LR.jpg
MWSnap%202009-09-03%2C%2009_10_02.jpg
 
To be truthful, no compacts other than the new micro 4/3rds and the Leica M8/Epson RD-1 perform well indoors at high ISO. Some are better than others (Panasonic LX3 is half decent) but none of them come anywhere near to what I would call good. As long as you understand this you will not be as disappointed.
 
krishcanag said:
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=20054

Hope this works

Please note the edge f the table, that corner is a double image I got this with the fuji even when I placed it on top a arm rest and ckicked it. The fuji is in normal auto, when in EXR it got a bit worst but moe colour was present.
Click to expand...

It works fine, although the images are quite small and it is not obvious that there is a problem in overall IQ from either camera - the typical problem is noise and I don't see that in either image. However, the EXIF data is very revealing....

IXUS - 1/60, f/2.8, 200 ISO, flash on
FUJI - 1/250, f/3.3, 200 ISO, flash on

Assuming the room lighting is the same in both shots (more on that later) what's happened here is that the IXUS has used a brighter basic exposure - brighter by 2.3 stops - and that means the flash has had to work far less hard to light the room. This means that the flash can be quite weak and the shadows caused by the flash are also quite weak.

With the Fuji, the camera has picked up very little of the existing ambient light and has relied heavily on flash for most of the exposure. Thus the flash is powerful and the shadows it casts - e.g. behind the edge of the table - are strong. That is why you have a double edge to the table.

Now, I have no idea why the cameras picked such different settings (you'd have to ask the designers), but maybe there is some way you can tell one of the cameras to change the exposure balance between ambient and flash. If you have manual controls on either one then you can put yourself in charge and set the balance however you like.

There is another question to be answered and that is - what's going on with white balance? Well, the FUJI image was shot at 17:21 in August, so I guess there was still some good daylight, unless it was overcast. The light looks cold and clinical. The IXUS shot was ta 01:15 in the morning so I guess you had tungsten room lights on. The image looks cozy and warm.

So, all in all we appear to have different ambient light strength and temperature and the cameras have turned in different results. Perhaps it is not so surprising. But certainly the double edge to the table is nothing more than flash shadow. You might want to try shooting the cameras at the same time in the same conditions and then compare results. Also, be aware of which side of the lens the flash is on each camera, as the flash shadows might fall on opposite sides of an obect, perhaps looking worse in one case than the other.
 
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