Hi. ; Can anyone suggest a compact camera that is excellent in low-light conditions and also has a really good zoom function? ; Thanks!
Those are two tough specs in a compact camera. How much zoom? If you want a long zoom option, there is this new Sony RX: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1 ... amera.html More compact, less zoom: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/9 ... amera.html http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1 ... amera.html http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/9 ... amera.html http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/8 ... Black.html http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/8 ... amera.html
it is a very tough combo to meet - in order to be a compact camera AND have a long zoom reach, the sensor has to be small to allow for use of a much smaller lens. ; In order for a compact camera to be good in low light, it needs a fast lens (ie: a lens with a very large aperture) and also a large sensor that can handle higher ISO sensitivity levels without getting all noisy and grainy and smeared from noise reduction. ; So right off the bat, you have a conflict - good zoom range means small sensor, but large sensor is needed for low light goodness! Interchangeable lens cameras like DSLRs and mirrorless bodies can solve these two problems with interchangeable lenses - add a long telephoto lens when you need it, and attach it to the body which has a huge sensor (many many times larger than those in P&S cameras)...but of course, you had to throw 'compact' out the window to achieve it! The RX10 Roger mentioned is an interesting hybrid, because it has a decent zoom range, a larger-than-normal sensor for a fixed-lens P&S camera, and though not SMALL, is reasonably sized for the performance. ; But it's still large enough to not be pocketable, and is pricey. You might also decide what type of 'low light' shooting you need it for. ; There are two distinct types of low light photography: ; static scenes and moving scenes. ; For the static scenes, the key to nice shots is just to get a tripod and let the camera take a long exposure. ; Buildings, landscapes, etc are fine for this, and even basic pocket cameras and compacts can do a fine job. ; If the subject will be in motion in lower light, where handheld shooting is likely and a fast shutter speed is needed to freeze action, that's where you start to need those fast lenses and big sensors. Also, there are a few software tricks on some cameras that can help your low light performance - some cameras have special 'stacking' modes, whereby the camera takes 3 to 6 very fast shots in succession, and then merges them all together into one shot right in the camera - because noise occurs randomly, each of the 6 photos will have noise or grain in different places, and when the shots are merged together, most of this noise can be eliminated by getting rid of noise that appears in one shot that's not in the others...this also helps avoid that blurry, smeary look a lot of compact cameras have when shooting in low light, that is the result of the noise reduction software trying to hide all the ugly noise and grain in the shot. ; For handheld shooting, these stacking modes (Sony was the pioneer of this technology - they call theirs 'HHT' or Hand-Held Twilight...other manufacturers starting to introduce this function may have different names for it) are great because the software can even be added to smaller-sensor P&S and superzoom cameras, letting you shoot in lower light conditions with much better results than cameras with similar sensor sizes.
