recommend cameras & camcorders for night/action shots

[bride03]

I want to buy a new camcorder and camera for our next trip. I'm looking to spend about $1300 between the two and would like to purchase ones that are great for dim to dark lighting and action shots. Recommend please...

 

[Cricket2]

Are you leaning on one being used more than the other? Also, when you say "new" are you replacing something in both cases?

 

[bride03]

Well the camera will be used all the time for shooting pictures of my daughter and I want a better shot of dark shots and of action . My kodak washes her out when we have to use the flash.

The camcorder will be used indoors but not as often. We want to have a high-def camcorder that we can take video with at Disney so the night and day shots look great!

 

[YEKCIM]

For best low light stills, if you can swing it, a dSLR would be your best bet. Nikon, Canon and Pentax offer good entry level dSLR cameras; Sony's A100 has come down in price, too, and is another alternative. Fuji is the current low-light champ where Point and Shoot and superzoom cameras are concerned, but will not equal the low light performance of any dSLR.

I'm not up to speed on camcorders these days (bought my last one in 04) but it used to be that Sony had a reputation for good low light performance. You may want to read some reviews on this site. I found this site to be invaluable when reserching my camcorder purchase three years ago.

~YEKCIM

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

If you don't want to get into a DSLR, the best P&S cameras for low-light action shots are the Fuji's; they've got the best high ISO performance.

The F30 if you want a compact stick-in-your-pocket size, and the S6000fd if you want zoom ... there's a couple of other models, too (and possibly an upgrade to the F30), but these are the most popular/tried-and-true.

I don't know anything about camcorders, though....

 

[Groucho]

Also, it sounds like you're complaining about the flash... it's two different things to get good low-light performance with the flash and without the flash.

To get good performance without the flash, you need a big sensor so that you can use a higher ISO without the picture turning into a noise-filled mess. (Or a faster lens, if you move to a DSLR.) DSLRs have much, much larger sensors than any point-n-shoot digital camera, and if you stick to PnS cameras, the big-sensor Fujis (like the F31 with 3x zoom or the S6000fd with 10x zoom) are the clear kings.

To get good performance with the flash, you pretty much need a standalone flash unit that you attach to the top of your camera. To do this, your camera needs a "hot shoe" - all DSLRs have this, not all PnSs do. The bigger flash will be able to produce a brighter flash. Ideally, you'll be able to bounce this off something - like in a normal house, you can point the flash at a 45' angle to bounce off a white (or at least, brightly-colored) ceiling and the resulting image will look much more natural and less washed-out. If you're outdoors or something with a very high or black ceiling, you can't bounce, so you can try a diffuser, which will soften the flash's effect to make it less harsh. I haven't played with a diffuser so someone else would have to tell you how well they work in the real world.

The Fujis are pretty cheap ($200 for the F31 and $250 for the S6000fd, both after rebate), but a DSLR can get a little pricey. Even the best deal at the moment, equipped for low-light shooting, will be several times more - almost $900 for the Pentax K100D with 18-55mm lens, 50-200mm lens, and a 50mm F1.4 lens which does incredible things in low light. You could save $150 or so by dropping the 50-200mm, but you wouldn't have much zoom available for the times that you did want it. You could also skip the 50mm F1.4 and still have better low-light ability than any PnS, but the 50mm takes it to a whole different level.

For camcorders... you're talking to the wrong guy. I think most of them can do fairly well in low light nowadays, within reason? However, if you're looking at a high-def camcorder, there goes most of your budget right there, and I'm not sure how low-light performance will be. The more information you try to squeeze out of an imaging sensor, the worse the noise levels will be, but I'd assume that high-def camcorders have larger sensors than the regular standard-def ones, in order to overcome this. But I'm not sure, especially on the cheaper ones.

 

[Spinning]

I have the fuji s6000FD and love it. It is my second fuji, first one was the
s5100. I have taken low light pictures of my kids at school concerts, awards, in the gym etc...so far very pleased. I love the zoom on the lens also. It is a nice camera to play with for the price before going to the big guns of a DSLR.