Paul Laughlin wrote:
> For Moose.
> How does the A650 IS do in low light? I am pretty well set on getting one,
> but just wondered about the low light thing.
>
I wrote about this in my 2/4 Moose Monday column, " Is P&S Salvation at
Hand?", pages 2 & 3 being most on point to your question. The G9 and
A650 share lens and sensor system, so references on this issue to the G9
also apply to the A650 IS.
<http://zone-10.com/cmsm/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=168&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=1>
The images I took as soon as I got my A650 are shot by mixed room and
window light, but it wasn't very bright, so exposures, hand held were in
the 1/20 sec., f2.8 range at iso 400. Because the images look bright,
people may not have noticed the EXIF data.
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseEats/>
My restaurant/food images on the zone-10 gallery were likewise taken at
iso 400. <http://image66media.com/g2/main.php?g2_itemId=289>
I don't believe I've taken a shot at iso 800 yet.
Your question is somewhat incomplete. I don't know how low is low light,
tripod or hand held, moving or fixed subjects or how big the display is
to be.
For fixed subjects, the excellent IS adds 3+ stops to what one can hand
hold and make it a good low light camera. For moving subjects in low
light, the Fuji F10/11/30/31fd, all out of production, still are the
best small cameras around.
Here's an image that shows how it does with high dynamic range light.
iso 400, f4.8 (wide open), 44.4mm (210mm eq.) 1/200 sec., -1/3 EV. From
a JPEG. <http://moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/A650/Candid.htm>
I don't have a handle on it yet, but there are some odd, tiny artifacts
in the images at full pixel. Barely visible if you know what you are
looking for at iso 80-100. More visible and cause difficulty with NR at
iso 400. They pretty much disappear with down-sampling to 6 mp and I
don't think they would show up in prints less than, guessing, 11x14.
They are also in the sample images in the dpreview G9 review and
imaging-resource G9 & A650 IS reviews. (There are, by the way, some
higher iso images in these reviews and samples.)
I haven't looked into whether they are gone in RAW images yet. My dcraw
patched for the A650 won't run on my main machine (MS issue), so my RAW
playing hasn't gotten very far yet.
Moose
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