Paris Nuit Blanche - low light by Powershot S95

[Franglais]

I did these a few weeks ago just after buying the Canon Powershot S95 point-and-shoot. I wanted a compact camera for night-time tourism (all I get when I'm out on a professional trip).

I forgot about them till yesterday when I was reviewing my collection of photos of the Nuit Blanche event - an all-night artistic "happening" Paris where you walk from one site to the next all night. It was like reviewing progress in photography over the last decade:

- start with my Leica M4 loaded with 1600 ISO black-and-white film (horrible)
- next the Nikon D60 with the 35mm f1.8 (much better)
- lastly the Powershot (by far the best)

I was really surprised at how good the Powershot looked. The first 4 images are done normally. The last one is in special low-resolution-combine-pixels mode. The camera has picked up more detail than I could actually see

[LightBright]

Im impressed. Those shots look amazing for a camera sensor that size. What iso was the first shot?

[Photo-John]

I saw them in the gallery and then had to find out more. I agree they look really, really good - especially the two building photos. What ISO were they all taken at and did you shoot any of them handheld? Did you shoot them RAW or JPEG?

I'm wrapping up my SD4500 IS review right now and I spent some time yesterday doing some pixel-peeping of the S90 compared to the SD4500 IS and they are very similar. The SD4500 IS is uses the Canon "HS System" but it is JPEG only and it has a CMOS sensor instead of a CCD. It's also a 10-megapixel camera.

[Greg McCary]

If you want to use your M4 in low light try shooting TriX 400 at 1200iso and then develop it in Diafine. It works much better than high iso films.

[Franglais]

These are all hand-held, with the vibration reduction activated. All pictures are done in RAW and corrected in the Canon software supplied with the camera. Shooting details are:

1. 1/20s f2 1600 ISO 10Mpix
2. 1/30s f2 1600 ISO 10Mpix
3. 1/50s f2 1600 ISO 10Mpix
4. 1/20s f2 1600 ISO 10Mpix
5. 1/20s f2 3200 ISO 2.5 Mpix

This first time I set the ISO myself and let the camera ajust shutter speed and aperture. As I was shooting at the widest angle setting (=28mm) the aperture was always f2.

Since then I've had a load of events indoors with people as subjects and I've changed my strategy:

- preset focal length (usually 35mm or 50mm)
- fixed shutter speed (usually 1/100s to freze subject movement)
- let the camera fix the ISO

I'm working on a review. There is a lot to discover. This thing the first point-and-shoot that I can actually use for serious subjects but it needs some getting used to.