Exploring the limit
Can a compact point&shoot be used in low light, high contrast situations, such as night photography?
That's what I want to find out, using an old (2007) Fujifilm F31fd. I can tell you right now that the answer is yes, provided you know what you are doing and don't simply select the fully automatic program. That won't work, obviously.
Granted, the F31fd with its SuperCCD sensor has been praised for its high ISO performance. But that was 10 years ago. Frankly, I don't think it's a good idea to go beyond ISO 800 with that camera. So I set the limit there.
At the tele end of the zoom range, the widest aperture is f/5.0. For the given scene , with ISO 800 and f/5.0. Setting EV compensation to -1.67, the required exposure time is 1/18s, if I want the Moon behind the clouds to be visible (including some detail on the lunar surface) without blowing out the highlights on the statue and the column.
That's rather too long for comfort (this old camera does not offer image stabilisation), but with a steady hand, manageable. The advantage of the compact camera is that it has a leaf shutter and doesn't have a mirror. The disadvantage is that it is very light. A heavy camera is easier to hold steady.
There was some noise in the dark portions, but a bit of very limited post-processing got rid of most of that. The sky looks black, as it should. Not speckled with tiny dots of noise.
The outcome: There is some blur because of the long exposure time, In general the image is lacking sharpness, but given the limitations of the elderly camera, this is about as good as it gets without a tripod.
Also, keep in mind that this kind of camera isn't designed for pixel peepers who scrutinize their pictures 1:1 on a large screen. It's for amateurs who make prints no larger than 10x15cm or show their photos around on small, mobile devices. In that case, the appearance would likely be like that in the small inset, where most of the picture's flaws are no longer visible.
Exploring the limit
Can a compact point&shoot be used in low light, high contrast situations, such as night photography?
That's what I want to find out, using an old (2007) Fujifilm F31fd. I can tell you right now that the answer is yes, provided you know what you are doing and don't simply select the fully automatic program. That won't work, obviously.
Granted, the F31fd with its SuperCCD sensor has been praised for its high ISO performance. But that was 10 years ago. Frankly, I don't think it's a good idea to go beyond ISO 800 with that camera. So I set the limit there.
At the tele end of the zoom range, the widest aperture is f/5.0. For the given scene , with ISO 800 and f/5.0. Setting EV compensation to -1.67, the required exposure time is 1/18s, if I want the Moon behind the clouds to be visible (including some detail on the lunar surface) without blowing out the highlights on the statue and the column.
That's rather too long for comfort (this old camera does not offer image stabilisation), but with a steady hand, manageable. The advantage of the compact camera is that it has a leaf shutter and doesn't have a mirror. The disadvantage is that it is very light. A heavy camera is easier to hold steady.
There was some noise in the dark portions, but a bit of very limited post-processing got rid of most of that. The sky looks black, as it should. Not speckled with tiny dots of noise.
The outcome: There is some blur because of the long exposure time, In general the image is lacking sharpness, but given the limitations of the elderly camera, this is about as good as it gets without a tripod.
Also, keep in mind that this kind of camera isn't designed for pixel peepers who scrutinize their pictures 1:1 on a large screen. It's for amateurs who make prints no larger than 10x15cm or show their photos around on small, mobile devices. In that case, the appearance would likely be like that in the small inset, where most of the picture's flaws are no longer visible.