Author Topic: Best Point and Shoot for Low Noise in Images (Read 4755 times)

nextrecord · « **on:** December 24, 2007, 00:40 »

Hi Everyone. I have a basic question about noise levels in various point and shoot cameras. I do have a great slr that i take on real shoots, but like to keep a point and shoot camera in my bag at all times just in case i see something that's gotta be photographed. First I used a Panasonic Lumix and even With noise ninja the images were all rejected for high noise levels nonetheless. Then i had a fuji finefix and that was far better with noise levels. This camera unfortunately broke and I'm about to buy a new point and shoot and am wondering if anyone has any suggestions for which ones produce the least problems with high noise levels. Many thanks!

zorki · « **Reply #1 on:** December 24, 2007, 13:01 »

Right now, the best P&S camera is supposed to be the Canon G9. I have an older Canon A620 with the russian hack that always RAW capture and I've had quite a few accepted with that setup.

madelaide · « **Reply #2 on:** December 24, 2007, 19:30 »

Can the A620 take RAW images? How? Not that I would probably use it, as I have a DSLR now, but I still use the A620 in many occasions.

Regards,
Adelaide

grp_photo · « **Reply #3 on:** December 25, 2007, 02:57 »

Quote from: zorki on December 24, 2007, 13:01

Right now, the best P&S camera is supposed to be the Canon G9. I have an older Canon A620 with the russian hack that always RAW capture and I've had quite a few accepted with that setup.

The G9 is a very capable camera but NOT in the aspect for noise even 80iso is noisy and everything above is not usable (at least not for stock).
Try to get one of the Fuji preferable the older ones with the 6MP sensor (F10, F30, F31fd). But still the newer ones beat every other point and shoot in the aspect of noise because of the superior sensor-technology.
Sure the Fujis have their drawbacks but for low noise their superior.

le_cyclope · « **Reply #4 on:** December 25, 2007, 09:55 »

Adelaide, have a look here:
http://mikey.wordpress.com/2007/01/08/canon-powershot-a620-raw-format-hack/

I've never tried it and I would certainly hesitate...

Claude

madelaide · « **Reply #5 on:** December 25, 2007, 17:30 »

Scary!

Regards,
Adelaide

rosta · « **Reply #6 on:** December 26, 2007, 06:54 »

I use the A630 and have had images taken with it accepted everywhere, even upsized some into Alamy. One thing to remember is to go into the menu and change your sharpness and saturation settings, then use a manual iso setting to keep it as noise free as possible. I haven't done the hack yet, but have been tempted now that it is out of warrenty.

zorki · « **Reply #7 on:** December 26, 2007, 09:51 »

The G9 is noisier than my A620??? give me a break... I don't have the G9 but it's got to be much better than that camera.

The nice thing about that hack is that it doesn't mess with the camera BIOS or anything permanent. It's a small application that you load on your card and you have the choice to load it or not when you start up the camera. If you want RAW on any of the Axxx series cameras, this is the way to go.

gbcimages · « **Reply #8 on:** December 26, 2007, 11:44 »

I use the A640 ,get most all pics that I take accepted everwhere that I upload to.

madelaide · « **Reply #9 on:** December 26, 2007, 17:37 »

I still use the A620 for microstock photography. I do have some artifacting/noise rejections and in some cases they were valid rejections, due to overediting trying to compensate some underexposure in the original shot. When I get the right lighting and exposure, noise is not an issue.

Of course, skies are always a problem, even when shooting at ISO50 as I normally do, but this is generally an easy fix.

Regards,
Adelaide

epixx · « **Reply #10 on:** December 26, 2007, 19:53 »

Quote from: zorki on December 26, 2007, 09:51

The G9 is noisier than my A620??? give me a break... I don't have the G9 but it's got to be much better than that camera.

The G9 isn't necessarily better with regards to noise. With 12MP vs. 7MP on nearly the same sensor size, it's hard to keep the noise at the same low level. I used the even older A95 for my first microstock photos. Never had a single reject for noise, and at least one of my top sellers are taken with that camera. The top models of the A-series have always been very good cameras.

What may save the G9, is the RAW format, but then it will be a question of which RAW converter etc.