Excellent compared to what?
When a camera can AF in darkness, to me that is excellent.
If a camera has an AF assist lamp, and you're not too far from the subject, and neither the camera nor the subject are moving, and the subject happens to have a high-contrast pattern of some sort...
...then YES, AF works fine in the dark... with ANY camera.
But try to do the above while focusing on people's faces, or when you or they are moving around a little bit, and you won't have such great results. Sony and Olympus seem to have the edge here. Phi's test confirm this.
Now, I
don't go taking a shot in the dark without flash
What does flash have to do with autofocus?
I take lots of pictures in dim light without flash and of the ones that aren't out of focus, I get quite a few nice ones. Flash ruins the soft lighting and mood. I'll happily accept a little bit of softness from motion blur in order to get the right mood. But I cannot accept a totally out of focus image due to the camera lazily and stubbornly focusing on something on the edge of the frame instead of the central subject.
, nor do I try to
take a handheld flash-less shot in a room lit by merely a candle.
I do it all the time and I can make it work.
Once again, the issue is autofocus, not motion blur. Motion blur is the subject of motion and shutter speed, and is exactly the same from one camera to another. Poor focus is the result of an AF system not smart or fast enough to do its job correctly in less than ideal circumstances.
I
also don't zoom in at a distance of 25 feet with low light and
expect the camera's focus assist light to make the AF work.
I've had problems with my Sony S85 (AF not as good as 717's), even at wide angle. Many others have reported the same with the Canons. The AF is both too slow and too easily distracted. It has too much difficulty in dim light, takes too long to focus (or fail to focus), and often focuses on the wrong thing, regardless of where it is located in the frame.
I am really hoping that the G3's user selectable focusing area will at least eliminate that last problem.
Canon's AF is much better than Nikon's, but not as good as Olympus'
or Sony's 717.
My G3 is better than my Olympus C3000Z was.
I assume you mean its AF system (since that's what we're talking about here.)
Dunno about that one specifically, but the 3040 and 4040 are reportedly among the best at AF (fastest and most capable in low light.) If your results are different, you must have the only G2 with great AF.
Many people have complained loudly about AF problems, not about
Canon specifically, but about digital cameras in general.
It is a valid complaint.
A complaint, yes. Valid? I have to challenge that. Perhaps it's my
age, but I'm always in awe of what these cameras
do accomplish.
The most basic requirement of photography is light. To expect a
camera to handle a candle lit scene with the ease it handles a
sunny scene is unreasonable to me.
Why are you so defensive and apologetic for this camera? I like to be blunt and honest, not sugar coat the truth with emotional babbling about how wonderful technology is.
I am used to the AF systems on SLR cameras (which I've used for over 15 years), and the AF systems on these cameras are not even remotely as fast or as accurate. I think this is a big problem, and anyone who's really put their cameras to the test will confirm this.
It may be that your shooting style doesn't expose you to this problem, or it may be that you subconsciously persuade yourself to avoid any situations that your camera can't handle, but the problem does exist whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.
With my SLR, I rarely had out of focus shots, and when I did, it was only slight. But with these digital cameras, you often end up with the camera shooting with the focus set to infinity when you were aiming at a subject only 6 feet away. And without a proper focusing ring or a big, bright viewfinder, manual focus is no picnic. It doesn't happen outdoors in daylight, but it sure happens indoors at night, at parties, etc., and I have the ruined images to prove it.
This is not a mystery. It's a known issue, Olga.
Incidentally, I am not a novice. This is a limitation with these cameras that I must fight very hard to work around, so I do not appreciate the insinuation that I am complaining about nothing or that I don't know what I'm doing.
Would you care to describe in detail the pics you're referring to?
In the last couple of days I've taken indoor shots of people in
very low light situations, restaurants, and such. I've also taken
test shots in completely dark rooms.
DETAILS...
If you hadn't used the flash, what would your ISO, aperture, and shutter speed have been? That will tell me how dark it really was. Telling me that "it was dark" doesn't quite do it.
How far away was the subject and what did the camera focus on? If you took a picture of a guy wearing a shirt with vertical pin stripes on it, that's what the camera probably focused on, and not his face.
How long did the camera take to focus? About a second, or perhaps four or five?
Have you tried taking pictures of people without having them pose first. I am not interested in those "CHEESE!!" pictures. I like to take candid shots, and this means the camera has to be able to focus even if the subject is moving around slightly. If it takes the camera 3 or 4 seconds to focus, it won't work.
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