 Margot Petrowski |
Noise with point and shoot cameras I've had digital SLRs for years, and I'm used to having fairly crisp pictures with little digital noise. Recently I bought a highly rated digital point-and-shoot, a Panasonic Lumix. The images have so much noise. My daughters both have point-and-shoot digital cameras as well, and the images look the same regardless of the resolution. I wanted a small camera to keep in my purse instead of always lugging my massive camera around. Is this just a matter of the sensor? Is there any way to get a compact digital camera that takes crisp pictures? Any help would be much appreciated.
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doug Nelson |
My little guy is a Lumix. I find that when I put it on IA mode, the exposure and white balance are usually right on the money, but there's default sharpening and "noise reduction" going on that affect image quality. I deal with it by shooting at the lowest ISO that will do the job, and if the image is a "keeper", I shoot Raw. Sharpen in your imaging program as a last step. The physics of the tiny sensor-big image situation impose some compromises, noise being one of them. Some newer cameras from Samsung, Sony and others use the APS-C sensor of most DSLRs, an exciting prospect for those of us needing a compact camera AND better image quality. The images in my Mallorca gallery were shot entirely with a Lumix LZ 28. They don't hold up to extreme pixel peeping, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good they are, less surprised by how they fall short of images from my Pentax DSLR.
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- Carlton Ward Contact Carlton Ward Carlton Ward's Gallery |
Hi Margot, The bigger the sensor, the better the noise :) I noticed a big difference between my Canon 40D (APS-C)_ and my 5D Mark II (full frame). The technology is rapidly improving with digital noise and I don't think it will be long before a P&S has acceptable noise capability. Doug, I noticed an image in your gallery of Colmar, France :) Colmar is beautiful and so picturesque. Cheers, Carlton
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Koen Van den Beld |
I agree with the previous poster that with digital cameras the bigger the sensor the better the image quality. Unless they invent a completely new sensor technology it is impossible for a P&S camera with its small sensor to produce images of the same quality as a DSLR. The only thing you can do is to make sure you use the lowest ISO setting possible and make sure the shot is properly exposed. If you do this, those little P&S cameras are still capable of producing some amazing photos. In low light situations they are pretty hopeless.
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Valerie Y. Martin |
Margot, I chose a Nikon P7000 for my Christmas present because--out of the dozens of cameras I researched--it had what I considered to be the best quality in a point-and-shoot. There is still more noise than in a typical dSLR, but much less than in many other P&S cameras. The sensor is about twice the size of the sensors in most compacts, but still *tiny* compared to a dSLR. There are full-size sample photos from it here (click on an image to view it full-size): http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/nikon_coolpix_p7000_review/sample_images You didn't mention which Lumix you are using, but that website has many reviews, so you may be able to see how the noise compares with yours. On the page with the sample photos, it shows the ISO for each photo under its thumbnail. Valerie
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- Greg McCroskery Contact Greg McCroskery Greg McCroskery's Gallery |
Margot, I don't guess anyone here has checked out the micro four thirds interchangeable lens cameras from Olympus and Panasonic. The Olympus E-PL1 produces amazing quality images, shoots HD video, and is very compact. You can check out the image quality compared to other larger DSLR's on either dpreview.com, or imaging-resource.com. ISO's up to 1600 are very clean, and ISO 3200 is very useable. The Olympus E-PL1 body with 14-42mm lens is available on Amazon for $429 w/free shipping. God Bless,
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