Will Another P&S Camera Do Better??

[Luvmyfam3]

I have a Casio Exilim EX-750. Here are some pictures that I've taken in less-than-perfect-conditions and I'm wondering if the Canon SD850 or some newer P&S would do better. I'll say upfront that I'm not the best photographer, but I did use the low-light settings if appropriate and used something to anchor the camera. Thanks for your advice!!

This one just seems to have a lot of noise to me....

Do the new ones help with not letting the closer object get washed out?

I'm not knowledgeable at these type of pics, but I was just playing around...

 

[fitzperry]

All digital cameras have noise issues to one degree or another. Dslr's generally perform much better than p&s cameras in this regard because of their larger image sensors. There are a few Fujis that have a slightly larger sensor than other p&s cameras and reportedly have fewer problems with noise. I don't recall the specific Fuji series offhand, but someone here will likely know.

Wrt your second image, the reason that the closest objects tend to get "washed out" or overexposed with the background underexposed is the flash. The flash only illuminates the objects within its range, which is typically less than 15 feet, and it's likely to illuminate the things closest to it too much. Unless your camera has manual settings, your options for controlling this are fairly limited. It helps if there is decent ambient light, but again that's not always something you can control. The picture you posted doesn't look too bad to me (in terms of the lighting, I mean--it's otherwise very nice), but it does appear that the background was fairly dark, leaving the flash a lot to compensate for.

The problem with the third one is motion blur. In order to capture an image without flash in low light, the shutter must stay open for a longer period of time. You mentioned anchoring the camera; if you did that here, then it is possible that you shook the camera when you pushed the shutter. If you don't have a remote release, then you can use the camera's self timer to eliminate this problem.

 

[Groucho]

Like fitzperry says...

Like PnS cameras are hobbled by a tiny sensor (so lots of noise in low light), a weak flash, and a flash that's too close to the lens itself (since the camera is so small) so you get red-eye on top of everything else.

The cure for washed-out flash is either less power (some PnSs will let you do that) or ideally, a diffuser or bouncing the flash off the ceiling. The latter two are generally difficult or impossible with a PnS.

As for the Fujis, you want to look for the ones with a SuperCCD HR sensor. The F40 is one, with a 1/1.6" sensor instead of the usual 1/2.5" that most PnS cameras have.