My camera is a Canon PowerShot S110. It was marketed overseas as the iXus V. I think there are probably a lot of people in this forum who have the same or similar model, so I'll ask here before trying photography forums.

Without flash, this camera takes poor low-light pictures. Even with flash, the subject has to be very close to the lens in order for the flash to have any effect at all.

Setting the camera to "Manual" mode and adjusting the exposure control up and down seems to have zero effect.

Any tips?

Strange... with my s200 the flash is TOO bright... they must have overcompensated. =] I end up useing the night mode flash in manual mode most of the time. It gives a really nice motion blur but still captures the freeze frame.

night mode flash

Eh? Do you mean the "Slow-synchro" mode? That's the only one on my Ixus 400 that I can find that says anything about night-time.

CCDs are not noted for their ability to take good low light pictures. That said how low is the low light? Have you tried exposing the images for a few seconds (on a tripod of course)? Camera meters also tend to be inaccurate in the dark so that could another cause of the pictures not coming out in low light. I have taken long (10 second) exposures with my Powershot A30, they do come out but they take a long time to "post-process" probably because it has to do a lot of de-noising of the image.

That said how low is the low light?

By low light, I mean anything other than flash or daylight. Low light includes any indoor shots without flash. Even shots with fluorescent office lighting.

Anything taken indoors without flash requires a long exposure. So long that I can't hold the camera still enough to prevent blurring without bracing it against something or using a tripod.

In reply to:

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By low light, I mean anything other than flash or daylight. Low light includes any indoor shots without flash. Even shots with fluorescent office lighting.

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You'd think your camera would be able to meter and give you a picture in light like this. What mode are you using to take pictures like this? If you are in some automatic mode you might try the "P" mode or "M" mode (adjust until the camera says the exposure should be right). Like you said though you will need a tripod to make any indoor shot with aritifical light stable- unless you can change your ISO setting to something fairly high like 400 or 800.

I don't see an ISO setting, just an exposure control that goes from -2 to +2. It has "Automatic" and "Manual", and neither setting nor the exposure control seem to affect this.

Looks at the specs it looks like the lowest shutter speed on Tony's camera is one second. It also looks like there is no control over the ISO/ASA setting, so he can't even boost the sensitivity at the expense of more noise.

The CCD in my Canon 10D is quite happy in low light

Edit:

Doh! Of course, the sensor in my 10D is CMOS, not CCD.

Does it give you an indication of the shutter speed and apeture it's going to use in Automatic mode? If it does note what it is indoors. If it's at 1 second it may just be too dark for a nonflash picture. I did notice reading the specs of this camera that it's min. shutter speed is one second and it's ISO is 100. So indoors it's possible it's just not able to do a long enough exposure to get an image though it would have to be pretty dark. Not to be a camera snob but my advice would be to dump it and move up to a Powershot A## series (or a Digital Rebel if you have a little more $$ to spare)

I can get an image indoors, it's just that I can't get a non-blurry one without a tripod. There is no indication of a shutter speed, but one second sounds about right based on listening to the shutter click.

When I use a flash, the flash only seems to reach about ten feet or so. The biggest problem with the flash is if I go to one of my kid's school presentations, the flash illuminates the row of parents in front of me and never quite gets to the stage.

I agree that a different camera would solve the problem. But I love the portability of this one. It's so tiny I can keep it in my pocket or my empeg bag all the time, so I always have it with me.

When I use a flash, the flash only seems to reach about ten feet or so. The biggest problem with the flash is if I go to one of my kid's school presentations, the flash illuminates the row of parents in front of me and never quite gets to the stage.

You've pretty much just run up against the limitations of your camera, and you're not going to be able to do too much to make it work. You already know how far your flash will reach, and you know that you can steady the camera on just about anything to make long exposures workable without a flash.

You're just going to have to be one of those parents who walks up to the front row if you want to take a picture. However, you'll never get anything other than a snapshot using the built in flash of a pocket sized camera.

You can take some great shots with point and shoot cameras, but you have to accept the good (having it with you) with the lack of features.

Matthew

However, you'll never get anything other than a snapshot using the built in flash of a pocket sized camera.

Yep, and that is pretty true of any camera with a built in flash (film or digital). A flash is really only useful for at most 10 to 20 feet unless it is a big honking studio style external. I would look at this as an excuse to upgrade to something in the prosumer space where you probably get a little better flash and can adjust the effective ISO speed to compensate for low light conditions

-Mike

This camera is very limited by the fixed ISO-100 sensitivity. ISO-100 is only really good for very bright outdoor conditions, or perhaps on a tripod in less than sunny conditions.

I generally use ISO-400 or higher for indoor shots; or ISO-200 for flash photos (doubles the range of the built-in flash).

Cheers

I agree that a different camera would solve the problem. But I love the portability of this one. It's so tiny I can keep it in my pocket or my empeg bag all the time, so I always have it with me.

Part of the problem is that your camera is a little out of date. Most of the small digital cameras now (including the new Ixus models) have a wider range of sensitivities. Your camera only does ISO 100, most of them now do from ISO 50 to ISO 400.

The jump from ISO 100 to ISO 400 means the sensor is 4 times as sensitive to light. That means in the same situation one of these new cameras will be able to use a four times faster shutter speed than your Ixus, meaning you are less likely to end up with blurred pictures.

With increased sensitivity comes increased noise, but the current crop of cameras probably don't have that much noise at 400 than yours does at 100.

As a comparision, on the Canon 10D I have 800, 1600 and 3200. I regularly use ISO 1600 in low light, the 10D has less noise at 1600 than many small digital cameras have at 50 (because the photo cells in the sensor are so much larger, which reduces noise). The Digital Rebel has 800 and 1600 as well, but not 3200 (which is not a great loss, 3200 is quite noisy), but the DR is a big step from the Ixus in both size and price

If you want good low light performance, but without going a large as one of the DSLRs then there are a few cameras that have 800 ISO:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscf828.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Fujifilm/fuji_finepixs5000.asp (but only at 1MP size)
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Fujifilm/fuji_finepixs7000.asp (but only at lower resolutions)
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Minolta/minolta_dimagea1.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Nikon/nikon_cp5700.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Nikon/nikon_cp4500.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Nikon/nikon_cp5000.asp

I'm sure there are some more, but I'm starting to get bored...

These are all quite a bit bigger than the Ixus. To my knowledge Canon don't do above ISO 400 on any of their compact cameras (not even their flagship G5).

Canon are planning on pretty much replacing their whole range of compact digital cameras this year (I think they plan to release something like 40 new models). I suspect the announcements will start in February, with the first big camera show of the year. Perhaps there will be some new compacts with better ISO ranges ?

Perhaps there will be some new compacts with better ISO ranges ?

Ixus 400 has more ISO modes: Auto, 50/100/200/400.

Ixus 400 has more ISO modes: Auto, 50/100/200/400.

I didn't mean better ranges than Tony's Ixus, I mean better ranges than the current Canon compacts manage. None of them go as far as 800 ISO, not even the G5 (although in the review of the G5 at http://www.dpreview.com/ Phil does say "In reality this range is closer to other manufacturers ISO 100 - 800")

Looks like the Canon Digital Rebel has got some competition now, Nikon have a six megapixels, $1000 digital SLR:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0401/04012806nikond70.asp

And they have got a reply to the Sony 828 as well, with the Nikon Coolpix 8700, 8 mp, 8x zoom:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0401/04012805nikoncp8700.asp

I didn't mean better ranges than Tony's Ixus

Yeah, I know. I was pointing out that, if Tony's Ixus v doesn't have an ISO setting at all, then the 400 is better. It's still not enough, though if I was that bothered, I'd buy a bigger digital camera, rather than a compact.

I was that bothered, I'd buy a bigger digital camera, rather than a compact

I must have become a DSLR snob, I think of anything smaller than a Digital Rebel as a "compact"

In my experience (enthusiastic amature - Canon A2E, Canon S35 (predecessor to the S50), Canon 10D), I was never able to get really satisfying indoor shots with any built-in flash. That's because I really don't care for the inevitable 'head shadow ring' effect. As soon as I stepped up to an external flash (hot shoe type), I was sold. Bounce flash, diffuser, range, less red-eye, flash exposure readings... it's no comparison. My advice is to try a compact P&S that has a hot-shoe and use an external flash unit (the G5 and its predecessors have one) for those times you need it. 400 should be plenty of ISO range with a good flash. This eliminates the smallest P&S cameras, but the G5 isn't that big.

-Zeke

but the G5 isn't that big

Until it has an external flash stuck on the top of it

Yes, but I was assuming Tony would be smart enough to remove it when he went hiking etc!

-Zeke

I have a Canon G1 with the hot-shoe. I can say that the G series is a good mid-level camera and takes pretty good pictures, and has had good reviews on dpreview.com. I like mine, but it is much, much heavier than most other compact cameras out there.

The gallery linked above contains photos taken by my wife (who seems to have a better eye than I).

Ixus 400 has more ISO modes: Auto, 50/100/200/400.

Ah, this is good to know. I've been coveting my neighbor's new PowerShot s400, and if I ever upgrade, it's good to know that it's more capable of getting low-light shots.

In the meantime, is there a such thing as a small portable external flash or light source?

Carry a lighter? [ducks]



-Zeke

In the meantime, is there a such thing as a small portable external flash or light source?

You can get a "slave" flash unit. Modern flash systems have the camera talking to all the flashes via radio. Back in the not-too-old-days, however, remote flashes could be triggered simply by the bright light from the main flash. Wedding photographers tend to use this sort of gear. See, for example, this photo from one of my cousin's weddings. My flash triggered the remote.

I did some quick digging around on B&H Photo Video (just search for "slave flash"). There's something called a Digi-slave Pro that can be programmed to do exactly the right thing for you. It's USD 240. They've got a cheaper model for USD 150, and the bottom of the line for USD 100. You can also get the USD 50 Phoenix Digital Slave Flash, which seems to include a nice mounting bracket. Of course, I have no idea how well these things do at figuring out your existing camera, but I imagine the "digital" ones do a better job than traditional slaves at dealing with your camera's "pre-flash" (if it does such a thing).

Personally, I've got a Canon G3 (having given my older Canon G1 to my sister as a birthday gift), and I have an external Speedlite 420EX flash. Bigger flashes are the answer to your problem.

If, for some reason, you're hearing the siren song of a new camera, I'd encourage you to hang out until the end of February, when the big photo industry tradeshow happens in Vegas. The pre-announcements are already starting...

Thanks for the information on the slave flash units. Sounds like exactly the sort of thing I was asking for. Looks like even the bottom of the line unit would be appropriate for the sort of situations I'm thinking about.

It's nice to see Alec Baldwin at a Jewish wedding....

That's Mister Asshole to you.

Wow, is that really him? If not, he's a dead ringer in that photo.

Indeed, the groom is quite involved in the NYC democratic party, and Alec Baldwin, Hillary Clinton, NBA commissioner David Stern, and maybe some other big names attended the wedding. My cousin, the bride, seems to be taking it all in stride. Of course, I've got more photos online.

For what it's worth, I think I didn't have my big flash with me at the time, but I can't remember.

Uhhh. Weird. I was just making a joke....

I love this photo from the wedding shots:

Canon are planning on pretty much replacing their whole range of compact digital cameras this year (I think they plan to release something like 40 new models). I suspect the announcements will start in February, with the first big camera show of the year.

Looks like the onslaught of new models from Canon has begun.

http://www.dpreview.com/

The Canon Powershot Pro1 is an intriguing camera! It's larger than my Canon Powershot G3, but has a 28-200mm equiv. zoom lens (versus my current 35-140mm equiv. lens). The extra wide angle would be particularly useful to have. Realistically, I'm tempted to keep my G3 and possibly get myself a full-blown SLR, which I could use when I want to have every possible option. The G3 could still go with me when I travel due to its relatively light weight and size, while the SLR would be the no-compromises über camera.

The real question is whether Canon will announce a successor to the EOS 10D. DPReview said, about the 10D: A year on and just as they did with the EOS-D60 Canon announced its successor, the EOS-10D two days before the start of the PMA show. In total it's three years since the original EOS-D30 was announced (although only two since it hit the streets). Just a few weeks more and we'll know.

The real question is whether Canon will announce a successor to the EOS 10D

I'm 100% sure that Canon will either replace the 10D this year, or maybe release a camera between the 10D and 1D. I replacement is more likely though, given how little the gap in functionality is between the 10D and the Digital Rebel/300D.

However, reading between the lines on the dpreview forums my guess is that it won't happen until the end of the year. I think they've just got too much being announced at the moment, with the 1D MkII, a couple of new lenses and heaps of digital compacts. They aren't likely to want to release a new 10D at the same time.

my guess is that it won't happen until the end of the year

I'd imagine the 10D successor will have some specs comparable to the 1D Mark II, like an 8 mpixel sensor, but probably not support the 8 frames/sec and 40 frames in the buffer of the 1D Mark II. Heck, I'd be thrilled with 3-4 frames/sec and a 10 frame buffer. If (big if) they're using the same sensor on both camera bodies, then it would make sense for the initial production run to go to the 1D Mark II and for the 10D successor to come out in time for Christmas.

On the other hand, you could argue that Canon was smart to get the Digital Rebel (a.k.a. EOS 300D) to market months before Nikon has a D70 to compete with it. I'll bet they want to do something similar in the next market segment, as Nikon will, at some point, have a successor to the D100.

Following up on this old thread, I think I will be buying one of those digital slave flash units in the very VERY near future (i.e., I realized that I absolutely must have one before I go to my next convention at the end of the month, which means I have only about ten days to get one into my hot little hands).

Dapper Dan, do you know of anything that is a better value than that Digislave DSF-1 you linked?

Edit: Or should I be getting that Phoenix unit? I like the bracket idea... Hmmmmmmm....

do you know of anything that is a better value than that Digislave DSF-1 you linked?

I've never used any of these things in person, so it's difficult for me to say whether any of them work at all. On the other hand, you can't go too wrong for $50. Personally, I recently bought myself a Nikon D70 with the kit lens and the SB-800 flash. It's just astonishing how many nifty things you can do with this camera. But, that's a story for another thread.

In short, I see this slave flash thing as a stop-gap measure to tide you over until you're ready to drop bigger bucks on a shiny new camera (as discussed in the other thread about available-light photography). If/when you get something like a Canon G3, then you're getting a camera that can support a Canon-branded flash. (Likewise, if you buy a nice Nikon, you can use a Nikon-brand flash.) Generally speaking, the same-brand flashes can do more sophisticated things than off-brand flashes, which again, in general, means that your pictures will be more likely to come out properly exposed.

But, that's a story for another thread.

Don't keep us waiting * too* long, as I'm itching to get me one of those D70 kits....

I've been thinking of making a whole "I love my D70" web page, but that's not going to happen until things calm down at work. In a nutshell:

- The camera is just fast. You turn it on. It's on right now. No waiting. You shoot. You press the button and it shoots. You press again, it shoots again. I've never once had to wait while it was writing out to the memory card, and I shoot exclusively in RAW mode.

- The 18-70 kit lens is pretty good. The extra wide-angle is quite useful (27mm equiv.), and the focusing is fast and quiet. Focusing on one person in a crowd can be an exercise in frustration, however. There are three focusing modes, and none of them are "just use the center focusing target and ignore the other four." Maybe I'm just picky, but I've found myself needing focus manually on far too many occasions, and the screen isn't one of the traditional ground glass / split screens that makes it easy to focus.

- The SB-800 flash is the best thing since sliced bread. You can put the camera into "commander" mode and the flash into "remote" mode. You can then hold the flash in your left hand, the camera in your right, and everything pretty much just works. The flash also comes with a frosted white dome thing that gets you a smoother light distribution if you want it. You also get filters to match the flash to incadescent or flourescent lights. The camera, by default, tries to use a slower exposure such that the flash is only a "fill" flash. If that's what you want, it does it brilliantly. If you want a bright foreground and a dark background, using the camera's tight 1/500 flash sync, you have to put the camera into manual mode.

- Internet weenies (particularly on the dpreview.com forums) complain about moire and about backfocus. I've never seen moire, ever, but I shoot RAW, which is one of the known ways to avoid the problem. Backfocus hasn't been a problem for me. The finicky focus system, when it works, is spot on. When it doesn't work, it's usually quite sharp, just not on my intended subject. The focus system will highlight the focus zone that it thinks it's using. This is usually fine. The real trick with this camera is when you realize that pressing the button is free, so you just start shooting like you're a member of the paparazzi. Shoot 30 pictures and one or two will turn out good in the end.

Edit: adding some more information, now that I've had a chance to think about it.

- One annoyance of the D70 camera, and of any D-SLR, is dust. When you change lenses, you allow dust to get on the sensor. This manifests itself as fuzzy, out-of-focus blobs on your pictures. You can usually Photoshop around it, but you often need to clean out the fuzz if you like to change lenses. One thing the Nikon does apparently better than its competition is that you can force the mirror lockup and clean out the camera without it needing to be plugged into the wall. I bought a can of compressed air, and that seems to be doing the job nicely.

- Another genius feature is the automatic ISO adjustment. I have it set such that it will stick with ISO 200 (its minimum) until the automatic exposure time that the meter demands would be longer than 1/30 second. At that point, it will start pushing the ISO until 1600. Only after that will it go with a shorter exposure.

- At some point, I intend to buy myself Nikon's 10.5mm fisheye lens. It's equivalent to 17mm with the Nikon sensor, but that's still wonderfully wide. There's nothing comparable for any of the other D-SLRs out there except for a few professional cameras (the Canon 1Ds, the Kodak equivalent, etc.). In general, Nikon's line of DX lenses gives some amazing wide-angle options that make up for the smallness of the sensor. I don't believe that any of Nikon's competitors have anything like this on the wide-angle end of the scale.

- My only other Nikon lens right now is the 105mm macro. It's fantastic for shooting tiny things, but not very useful as a portrait or sports lens. I tried shooting some guys playing basketball outside, and it just can't accurately autofocus on a person standing
10-15 feet away. It kept getting distracted by the background. Even with closeups, you end up doing a lot of manual focusing.

- I'm pondering purchasing some kind of telephoto lens. I'm torn between the 80-200 (weighs less, costs less, but still pretty hefty), or the 70-200 (weighs and costs noticably more, but has nifty vibration reduction technology). I'm more likely to get the 10.5 fisheye before I'll get any kind of telephoto.

I've only put a small fraction of my D70 photos online. You can check out two parties that I've been two recently with my camera here and here.

Follow up: I ordered one of the Phoenix units, we'll see how it does...

More recent observations with my camera:

I realized part of the source for my unhappiness with the focus system. I went and read the manual again, closely, and I now understand what I was doing wrong. As a reminder, the camera has five "focus zones", one center, one left, one right, one top, and one bottom.

There are two main autofocusing modes (with two variants of the latter mode). The "simple" mode, which you get when you select any of the "VariProgram" (read: idiot) modes, is that the camera will focus on whatever it sees to be closest in any of the five sensors. If you're a point-and-shoot shooter, or if you're shooting over your head and can't actually put the focusing zones on anything in particular, then this mode is the right one to use.

If you have the camera in "P" (program) or one of the other modes that give you more control (which you need to do if you want, for example, to use the SB-800 flash in commander mode), you have a choice of using a specific one of the five sensors ("single sensor") or a dynamic variant where the camera may somehow intuit that the subject that you initially picked up in the center sensor moved to the left, so the camera will continue tracking your subject on the left sensor. The dynamic mode is only likely to be useful for certain sorts of sport shooting. (Of course, you can also tell the camera that you still want the "closest subject" focusing mode.)

Anyway, when you're in the single sensor mode, you can manually choose which sensor is used. And, by default, this is selected using the arrow buttons on the back of the camera. I'd been bumping these buttons all the time and my chosen sensor had been moving around willy nilly. Unsurprisingly, I came out with some improperly focused pictures. Reading the manual closely, I now understand why there's a "lock" switch on the back of the camera. If you move it to "L", then your chosen sensor stays put, even if you accidentally press the arrow buttons. Proper use of the camera (which the manual was not terribly clear on) is to leave this set to "L" until such a time as you want to move your focus sensor selection. Only then would you switch off the lock, move the sensor, then turn the lock back on.

Score one bonus point for the Nikon ergonomics people for realizing they needed the lock switch. Score one penalty point for the people who wrote the instruction manual for not making this abundantly clear beforehand.

My next adventure: a close reading of the manual for my SB-800 flash.

Additional follow up...

The phoenix unit works quite nicely. Does exactly what I wanted it to do. Turns the room into daylight essentially. I can point the thing straight up and the light from it is, if not natural, at least not nearly as unnatural as a direct facing flash.

The build quality is very cheap, and its system of brackets and screw attachments is downright chintzy and fiddly, but it does *work* and takes care of exactly what I needed it to.