What is best camera for zoom and low light?

[Jeffb]

I need advice on what digital camera to buy. I want something that I can take hunting with me and get pictures of deer that I might see that would range in distance from 5 to 100yards and almost always in lower light conditions. I bought a Casio Exilim EX Z1000 thinking it was small and with the 10.1 mega pixels and the 3X optic zoom I could enlarger the pictures and get what I wanted. Well a deer in some what low light and at 15 yards looked more like a spec than a deer and when I went to digitally zoom in on it the clarity was terrible. It was not even close to viewing the deer with the naked eye and I was hoping for better than that.
I have been looking at cameras in the $400-500 range and have seen some with ultra zooms and even IR capabilities. I have IR game cameras but have no idea what an IR regular camera does. I don’t want to buy something and end up like I did on the Casio, no good for my application.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[SmartWombat]

Difficult one.
If you want a compact camera, I think you might be out of luck.

I think you would be better off with less megapixels than more.
More megapixels usually means smaller pixels which are less good at capturing light.

Low light is something that most compact cameras struggle with, because they use tiny sensors compared to a larger DSLR camera. Tiny sensor = tiny pixel, and less light capturing area.

Fuji has a UV/IR version of the S3, but I haven't tried it so I have no idea if it meets your needs.

[EOSThree]

Finding a compact camera that will do what you want will be pretty difficult. Like Paul said, the small sensor used in compact cameras results in poor low light performance. If you aren't looking for super high quality photographs(4x6 is plenty large for you)then a compact camera will probably work for you in the conditions you describe. These cameras do pretty well in decent light(up to ISO 400)but suffer from pretty bad noise beyond that. Panasonic tends to blur details and smooths out the photo as noise increases. Canon tends to use less noise reduction resulting in more detail but grainier looking photos.

My ideas:

The first camera that came to mind when I read your post was the Panasonic TZ-3, 4 or 5. These Travel Zoom cameras have a great zoom range(28-280mm) while maintaining a pretty compact body. This series of cameras has probably the best zoom to size of body of all of the compact cameras.

Canon's S5 also has a great zoom range(35-350mm)but the S5 has a much larger body.

Finally, Panasonic has a couple of larger bodied super zooms the FZ18(28-504mm) and the FZ8(36-432mm).

[Jeffb]

Thanks for the ideas, I guess I should have been more detailed. I know that compacts are out since my Casio did so bad. I am willing to go with the some what bigger bodies to get the results I want. So how about some more ideas on those. I will check on the ones you listed and how about any more? Olympus SP-550 UZ is an 18 power zoom and Fuji S8100fd is also 18 power, any ideas on these or others? Thanks again

[EOSThree]

Your absolute best bet would be to get an SLR, I just got a 5D and I am amazed at the quality I can get at 1000 iso. That may be a bit too much camera for you, but an Xti with one of the super zooms out there will still produce excellent images at higher isos. Probably not as good as the 5D but then again the cost is a lot lower, too. And the Xti is pretty compact body, much larger than any point and shoot, but pretty small as SLRs go.

I don't really know anything about the Fuji or Oly so I will refrain from comment. This site, DPreview, Digital Camera Resource Page, and others are great sources of information on digital cameras.

Just another plug on the TZ-3, I own one. I just sold my Canon S2 and bought that little camera. I bought it specifically to be pocketable and yet have quite a zoom range, I am not disappointed.

An example of the range, both photos were taken from the same spot, the first photo is at 28mm the second is at 280mm.

[mn shutterbug]

And the Xti is pretty compact body, much larger than any point and shoot, but pretty small as SLRs go.

But, a person would need to add a lens to it.

That's a pretty impressive comparison between 28mm and 280mm. And, they're both sharp. A 3X optical zoom isn't much more than 2X when compared to 35mm. I believe it's only a little over 100mm. For your applications, you'd be much better off with at least a
10X or 12X optical zoom.

[SmartWombat]

I am not sure about the low light capability of the G9, it didn't do well in the store on HI (3200 ISO). It only has 6x zoom, too. Unlike some other cameras, it also goes down to f/4.5 at the long end of the zoom.
Not looking good for night work.

I have to admit to having one in my pocket ... being realistic there are some things it can't do.