High mp = slower film speed?

Our old Sony DSC-P7 was getting a little flaky, so I gave the wife a new camera for Christmas. A widescreen 1253 Kodak. We quickly found that indoor pictures (or less than daylight outdoor pictures) were dark, out of focus or blurred. These pictures just happened to be in the same auditorium, same lighting, as past years. Those pictures from the old Sony were great.

I used my son's Canon xti and got slightly better results, but not as good as the old Sony.

I go to Best Buy, shoot a few pictures in the store with Sonys, Kodaks, Canons, and Nikons. All of the same area, subjects beyond flash range, and all with factory settings, flash inhibited.

The results were not good. Sonys were best, Kodak worst. All point/shoot - no DSLRs.

Later a guy tells me it's the megapixels. Higher the count, the slower the film speed... TRUE? The old Sony was 3.2mp and sure took nice shots inside of subjects beyond flash range.

So what's up? Is this true?

Thanks.

jpresley said:

Our old Sony DSC-P7 was getting a little flaky, so I gave the wife a
new camera for Christmas. A widescreen 1253 Kodak. We quickly found
that indoor pictures (or less than daylight outdoor pictures) were
dark, out of focus or blurred. These pictures just happened to be in
the same auditorium, same lighting, as past years. Those pictures
from the old Sony were great.

Click to expand...

Dark: were you using flash? maybe your flash is not powerful enough. Was your shutter speed too high?

Out of focus/blurred: probably shutter speed is too slow. In low light the camera adjusts shutter speed to let in more light. The longer the shutter is open, the more light. But also the more motion blur can occur.

If you shoot full auto mode, the camera does its best. IF you can adjust your ISO level to a higher number manually, or your aperture to a lower f-stop you can get faster shutter speeds. The problem is a lot of point and shoots do all the thinking for you, and some of them don't have nice brains.

My daughter had a Fuji that did great in low light. But as a sacrifice, you get a noisier picture, usually because the camera pumps up the ISO level.

jpresley said:

I used my son's Canon xti and got slightly better results, but not as
good as the old Sony.

Click to expand...

This depends on the lens, and the shutter speed, aperture, ISO settings. SLRs can be used in full auto mode, but will give much better results when you take control.

jpresley said:

I go to Best Buy, shoot a few pictures in the store with Sonys,
Kodaks, Canons, and Nikons. All of the same area, subjects beyond
flash range, and all with factory settings, flash inhibited.

The results were not good. Sonys were best, Kodak worst. All
point/shoot - no DSLRs.

Click to expand...

Again, the cameras all try, but some do better than others. Low light is a demanding situation to shoot in.

jpresley said:

Later a guy tells me it's the megapixels. Higher the count, the
slower the film speed... TRUE? The old Sony was 3.2mp and sure took
nice shots inside of subjects beyond flash range.

Click to expand...

This guy knows nothing. You want to understand the elements of exposure and how to control them, or at least why your camera is doing what it's doing in auto mode.

The "film speed" is the ISO setting. The higher the ISO, the faster the "film", if you want to call it that, since obviously there is no film.

jpresley said:

So what's up? Is this true?

Click to expand...

No.

jpresley said:

Thanks.

Click to expand...

--

I don't know anything about photography. I just like to press the shutter button and hear that sound.

This all come down to sensor area per pixel. The higher the sensor area per pixel, the lower the pixel noise at same setting. The lower the pixel noise, the higher you can dial your ISO (is this the film rating that you mean?) to. For example, DSLR has much higher sensor area per pixel than P&S, thus, their ISO1600 is still very clean but for most P&S, ISO800 basically is too noisy and not usable.

jpresley wrote:
My general comment is that you were using the wrong settings.

jpresley said:

Later a guy tells me it's the megapixels. Higher the count, the
slower the film speed... TRUE? The old Sony was 3.2mp and sure took
nice shots inside of subjects beyond flash range.

Click to expand...

Utter cr@p. A 10Mpixel camera will usually have 800 ISO or higher as a top end ISO. At a guess that is higher than your Sony's max. So the 10Mpixel cam should be quite capable of getting the correct exposure.

It may be that at a given ISO the shot may be noisier on a 10Mpixel than your Sony (though I doubt it) but that is a different matter.

I rather suspect that your "problem" simply reflects the way different systems cope with a given situation. Many P & S cameras will shoot to expose correctly at the subject flash difference and ignore the background. (Though re-reading your post you may be saying that you had disabled flash in which case the speed of the lens and whether the cam has auto ISO as a default would heavily influence the result)

You woukd need to post examples with EXIF information to get a more detailed answer.

--
Chris Elliott

Nikon D Eighty + Fifty - Other equipment in Profile

http://PlacidoD.Zenfolio.com/

Your answer, whilst technically correct, only serves to confuse.

skylark_khur said:

This all come down to sensor area per pixel. The higher the sensor
area per pixel, the lower the pixel noise at same setting. The lower
the pixel noise, the higher you can dial your ISO (is this the film
rating that you mean?) to.

Click to expand...

You can dial the ISO as high as you like/the cam will let you on ANY cam and the shot should still be correctly exposed.

skylark_khur said:

For example, DSLR has much higher sensor area per pixel than P&S, thus, their ISO1600 is still very clean but for most P&S, ISO800 basically is too noisy and not usable.

Click to expand...

But both shots should be correctly exposed. The shots the OP takes in the camera store which he finds unacceptable will only be viewed on the LCD. They will not be seriously affected by noise. His main complaint is they are too dark.

--
Chris Elliott

Nikon D Eighty + Fifty - Other equipment in Profile

http://PlacidoD.Zenfolio.com/

Thanks for the detailed responses. I didn't think MP had anything to do with ISO, but then again I wasn't sure if the older sensors might have been "faster."

First, I used all the cameras with the factory default settings, except that I put them in flash inhibit mode. These are point & shoot cameras, so I expect them to be set where the manufacturer wants them. AND the primary photographer, aka WIFE/MOM, will not sacrifice convenience (having to manually setup the camera for each scenario) just to get a more megapixels and a nicer LCD display on the back.

The problem is that either these newer cameras won't automatically crank up the ISO, or they have significantly worse lenses, or both. It also appears that the Kodaks will slow the shutter over increasing ISO, so a tripod is required a lot sooner than with the old Sony.

I'm going back to the store with pencil and paper to take some notes. The bottom line is this: Take the same picture, same lighting, and the old camera's results are great (3.2 mp) while the newer cameras results are dark, or dark/blurry/noisy. Coincidentally, the same Sony DSC-P7 does a better job than a relatively new Canon Digital Rebel xti in the same test. (Of course, you can tweak the Canon and get better results.)

I love my sony DSC-P7!! I take alot of pictures of my kids in low light situations (theater and dance productions) and my pictures are almost always better than any other parents'. I bought 2 more P7s on eBay just to get the memory sticks and I keep one everywhere. (I also got a P9 which is 4.0 mp vs. the 3.2 mp P7, and I like the P7 better) One other parent has a Cannon G9 and that seems to do a good job too. You have a good idea of comparing the cameras in the store in low light, bring the P7 with you too if it still works, and let me know your results. I keep thinking I should upgrade, but haven't because I am so happy with the photos from the P7.

can you post some example pics? We can then look at the EXIF data and see just what shutter speed/aperture/iso etc etc was used by the camera in the shot.

Should be easy enough to look at the pics and say "oh hey, your old sony used an aperture of 2.8 and an iso of 800, but the new camera decided to use an aperture of 3.5 and iso of 400, which is why the sony one looks brighter..."

jpresley said:

Later a guy tells me it's the megapixels. Higher the count, the
slower the film speed... TRUE? The old Sony was 3.2mp and sure took
nice shots inside of subjects beyond flash range.

So what's up? Is this true?

Click to expand...

I wonder if he meant it as an analogy. If anyone here remembers correctly, slower film had more details. So, maybe he was comparing new 12 megapixels cameras to ISO 50 film and your old 3.2 megapixels camera to coarser ISO 800 film.

Hi,

The Sony lens was f/2·8 and has "Auto ISO" so I can guess what was happening and it might have had auto fill-in etc which makes a lot of difference and sometime isn't even noticed from behind the camera. And in an auditorium you might need a lot of flash as it may not have walls and ceiling nearby for reflected light.

Whatever, happened I wonder where the other guy got his weird ideas from and how many others think the same...

Perhaps a sample with the EXIF, or just the EXIF, from both cameras would tell us a lot.

Regards, David