Compact with High ISO and flip out LCD?

comet

Can anyone recommend a compact digital with a flip out screen and high ISO. I've been using a Canon A80 but want to upgrade, the new 10megapixel Canon A640 looks interesting but it only has up to ISO800 and I think i'd like a bit more for using it to take pics at low lighting indoor gigs.

andy1249

Being a bit of a gearhead and reading camera reviews regularly leads me to believe that the camera you are looking for does not exist , most compacts manage an ISO of 400 , 800 for a compact would be pretty good.

Ive never seen a compact go to 1600 and produce a usable shot. ( not yet anyway !! ) Even the Canon 20D when it first came out was praised for having a usable ISO at 1600 and thats a DSLR.

So , for low light at gigs , you are going to be looking at an SLR with a 50mm 1.8 prime , actually not that expensive these days if you go for a Canon 350D or 400D or a Nikon D50 etc. ( I believe Canon currently has the edge with high ISO but with a 50mm @ 1.8 the ISO is not that important !)

As far as I know this is the only current solution for ISO > 800 that will produce usable shots.

comet

Damn that's what I was thinking when my googling returned nothing.
I know some of the new Fujis compacts have ISO1600 (no flip out screen so i'm not interested anyway) but are you saying that pictures on them using ISO1600 wouldn't be much good anyway?
I'd be tempted to go for a bigger SLR type camera, the extra optical zoom would be a nice bonus too but sizewise it would probably be just too awkward and standoutish for what I'm looking for.
The Canon A80 I have at the moment is a good alrounder although without flash indoors its hopeless, its max is ISO400, would the A640s ISO800 be much of an improvement on it do you reckon?

andy1249

Yeah that 1600 on the fuji produces a highly mottled shot that I wouldnt call usable at all. And even at that the best shots from it take a lot of work to get.

The A640's ISO of 800 is its max , and again is going to suffer from a lot of noise , most of the reviews do not consider it usable.

The issue here really is the sensor size and amount of compression used in compacts , they are highly prone to noise , and high ISO's are not what they are known for , only the cameras with sensor sizes approaching APS-C or 35mm full frame manage to handler the noise situation better.

Even the latest high performing compact from Canon has issues with noise at the ISO 800 setting , see this review ,

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons3is/page14.asp

Im afraid for your app , you will probably need to consider an SLR ! A DSLR with a fast prime ( 50 mm at 1.8 ) would be excellent for your purpose but of course theres no flip out screen.

comet

Thanks a lot for the helpful advice and info, time to have a think about things so maybe i will go for a DSLR afterall!

B0rG

Canon a620 was better choice from that range of cameras. Just because matrix size is a bit bigger - which gives you less matrix noise.
Later models are using smaller matrix... Unfortunately they stopped producing it.


As for flash indoors my 350 and 30D with ef 50 1.4mm is hopeless too... I just gave up and got an external flash.

mathias

As for flash indoors my 350 and 30D with ef 50 1.4mm is hopeless too... I just gave up and got an external flash.

50mm @ 1.4 should be able to give you some good shots without the flash , unless its damn near pitch black !!

B0rG

mathias wrote:

50mm @ 1.4 should be able to give you some good shots without the flash , unless its damn near pitch black !!

yep, it is able... but it lacks certain important feature - predictability. You don't know what is the result untill you see it.

TempestSabre

B0rG wrote:

yep, it is able... but it lacks certain important feature - predictability. You don't know what is the result untill you see it.

Thats why digital is great...:)